Founders emphasize volunteers’ altruism

Founders emphasize volunteers’ altruism

By Eva Wolchover
Sunday, February 10, 2008 - Updated 12h ago

The idea of altruistically matching organ donors with patients on the Web prompted considerable controversy when matchingdonors.com launched in 2004, said co-founder Dr. Jeremiah Lowney.

The Web site caused health professionals and ethicists to worry that it would disrupt the federally contracted United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) waiting list, which is the nation’s central conduit for donor matching.

“There’s always apprehension when the Internet is used and people are taking their health in their own hands,” said Lowney, internal medicine specialist and medical director of matchingdonors.com.

“There was apprehension and some ethical questions that we were interfering with the system. But we’re augmenting the system,” he said. “Any time you can take someone off that UNOS list, other people move up.”

Lowney cites a key difference between UNOS and matchingdonors.com. The UNOS list provides patients almost entirely with cadaver organs, while matchingdonors.com serves as an avenue for patients to meet live organ donors.

“A lot of people don’t sign the donor card,” Lowney said. “So (after death) their organs don’t get used. There are just not enough kidneys in the system to help all the people who need them.”

Joel Newman, a spokesman for the UNOS system, said the agency in 2004 expressed concern that matchingdonors.com could lead to “potential exploitation.” In 2005, however, UNOS issued a more general statement that people weighing donating an organ should be “fully informed” of all risks and benefits.

There are 100,000 people waiting for organs on the UNOS list, and some 6,600 people die every year waiting for organs. But on matchingdonors.com, potential donors far outnumber patients.

Live organ donation has been proved safe, Lowney said, and donors can live normally with few if any complications from surgery. A live organ is better for the transplant recipient, Lowney said.

“It’s well accepted that it’s huge benefit to have a live organ,” Lowney said. “Surgery takes place in a controlled setting. It’s scheduled as opposed to rushed in the middle of the night. There’s no hours-long transportation - organ transport system is still rudimentary - and you get many more years from a live rather than a deceased organ.”

Also, with live donation, patients and donors have time to undergo a pre-screening and testing process for infectious diseases, antibodies and other complications.

“It’s completely up to the transplant centers on whether the surgery takes place,” Lowney said.

“What we’re doing is just getting people meeting and matching.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1072498&srvc=rss