The Problem With Our Transplant Allocation System

There is no mystery that many people who are on a transplant do not get the organs list that they need to survive. According to the New York Times, “4,720 people diedwhile waiting for kidney transplants in the United States.” What may come as asurprise is that a great number of kidneys were discarded, some 2,600, withoutever being given to a patient that might need the kidney. The reason for thiswas that many of them were found to not be viable. However, that is not to saythat these kidneys could not have been transferred. Many experts believe thatthere is a better system for matching organs and the people who need themat the right time.

According to the New York Times, “[t]he current process ismade inefficient, they say, by an outdated computer matching program, stiflinggovernment oversight, the overreliance by doctors on inconclusive tests andeven federal laws against age discrimination.” At the moment, the OrganProcurement and Transplantation Network govern the system, which is managed bythe United Network for Organ Sharing. In addition, there are medical reasonsthat a doctor might discard an organ like a kidney. To determine whether akidney meets the standard for transplants, the doctors biopsy a piece of theorgan and run tests to determine whether it is viable. Unfortunately, thisprocess has flaws and doctors discard organs that might be good for transplant.The scrutiny of officials from the Organ Procurement and TransplantationNetwork can also affect whether doctors throw away viable organs.

In an effort to increase the amount of people receivingviable organs, the United Network for Organ Sharing has established a committeethat has proposes a system that rates the kidneys of donors and gives the bestkidneys to those who expect to live the longest. However, the system isfacially discriminatory because it discriminates on the basis of age. Underthis system, the youngest recipients are more likely to receive organs thantheir older counterpart.

See Kevin Sack, Transplant Experts Blame Allocation Systemfor Discarding Kidneys, New York Times, Sept. 19, 2012.