Officials Re-examining Organ Transplant Rules

Officials Re-examining Organ Transplant Rules
12/28/2009 3:20 PM ET
Health officials are re-examining policies on using people with certain neurological conditions as donors, following a recent incident in which two kidney transplant patients contracted a brain infection from a donor.

The organ donor was thought to have an autoimmune disease that would not be transmitted to the patients, but the disease turned out to be a brain disorder. The misdiagnosis was not realized until the transplants had been done and the two recipients became critically ill, Statesman.com reports.

The University of Mississippi Medical Center disclosed the case on December 18. According to the New York Times, the incident highlights a lack of national policy on whether to allow people with poorly defined disorders to be donors.

For now, however, the decision to use donors with such conditions is still up to each individual transplant center, says Dr. Michael G. Ison, chairman of an advisory committee on infectious disease transmission for the United Network for Organ Sharing.

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