Organ donation should be opt-out: Let New Yorkers say if they don't want to give

Organ donation should be opt-out: Let New Yorkers say if they
don't want to give kidneys, livers

By Herbert Pardes

Wednesday, June 16th 2010, 4:00 AM

Each year, more than 6,000 Americans die waiting
for transplants - including 650 here in New York
State - because there are no available organs. More
than 106,000 patients suffer, sometimes for years,
while waiting for a family to make the gift of life.

Though 28,000 transplants occur every year in the
United States, there are just not enough donations
of hearts, lungs, kidneys and transplantable organs
for everyone who needs one. The need has
prompted some states, most recently New York, to
propose a change in the donation standard to
"presumed consent."

Presumed consent means people are eligible to be
organ donors unless they specify they do not wish
to be a donor. Right now, it's the other way around
- you have to explicitly opt into donating your
organs (on your driver's license or elsewhere) rather
than opting out.

To greatly expand the numbers of potential eligible
donors, we should change that law, without delay.
Legislation introduced by state Assemblyman
Richard Brodsky and Sen. Thomas Duane also
would do that - while clearly and unambiguously

protecting the rights of those who do not wish to
allow their organs to be transplanted.

Studies indicate organ donation is widely popular. A
1993 Gallup survey found 85% of Americans favor
organ donation and 69% would like to donate their
organs after death.

Despite this support for organ donation, only 37%
of Americans have signed up to be donors on their
driver's license or through a donor registry,
according to Donate Life, a national organ-donation
education organization. In New York, only 13% of
adults are registered donors. In Texas, just 2% of
adults are.

Presumed consent organ donation systems are used
widely in Europe. A 2006 analysis in the Journal of
Health Economics found presumed consent
countries have donation rates that are 25%-30%
percent higher on average than other countries.
That's enough to seriously reduce the waiting list in
the United States.

Today, deciding whether to donate often is done by
families dealing with the sudden and traumatic loss
of a loved one. Often potential donors have just
died in a car accident or another sudden event. A
doctor must certify that an eligible donor is brain-
dead, meaning his or her organs may still function
but the brain has been fully evaluated and shows no
signs of life.

If the organs are to be donated, surgery must be
done quickly before they decay within a few hours.
Approaching the family must be done with
sensitivity and understanding for the bereavement
they naturally feel.

It is a difficult time - that is made more difficult if
the potential donor's wishes for donation are not
known.

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Changing the law would improve this state of affairs
- and save thousands of lives in the process. The
success rate for organ transplants can exceed 90%.
The success rates are even higher for cornea
transplants to regain sight or skin transplants for
burns.

Predictably, presumed consent has been challenged.
Opponents claim it takes away an individual's right
to his or her own body. They suggest that this is
government being invasive in the worst possible
way.

But the New York legislation protects an individual's
right not to be an organ donor; all it would take is a
simple "No" on a form.

As the discussion on presumed consent advances,
people should examine their own feelings toward
donation. And once a person makes a decision, it is
important that they state their desires clearly to their
family members - and in a living will and on their
driver's license.

Organ transplantation is a remarkable achievement
in medicine. But it is limited by how public policy
manages organ donations. Let's fix the law - and
save lives.

Pardes is President and CEO of New York-
Presbyterian Hospital.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/06/16/2010-06-16_organ_donation_should_be_optout_let_new_yorkers_say_if_they_dont_want_to_give_ki.html