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Hepatitis C Movement for Awareness

110 Glover Circle
Staunton, VA 24401
Phone 540 248 7324
Email HMAwareness@aol.com

TO: Fill this in

FROM: Fill this in

RE: Presumed Consent & Donation Benefits

Dear Fill this in,

Although each organ donor can save eight lives with organs alone (two kidneys, two lungs, liver can be split, heart and pancreas or intestine) and over 2 million people die every year in the USA, there were only 6,455 cadaveric donors last year. In addition, one patient dies each ninety minutes while waiting. Of course, not all who died did so under circumstances that would allow them to be donors, but it still can be said that 6,455 is a tragically low number, especially when over 50,000 Americans with diabetes and other renal diseases need new kidneys to survive.

To address the organ-donor crisis of 84,500+ Americans on waiting lists, many transplant surgeons, hepatologists and medical ethicists are now urging policy makers to actively explore different models of consent for organ donation, including Presumed Consent (PC) and donation benefits to donor families, and determine what model more effectively increases the level of donation consistent with societal values. 

The PC motto is, “Your Choice First.” Every American’s wish will be honored in that every adult will be asked if he/she wants to be an organ donor. Those who say “no” will be kept in an opt-out registry to insure their wishes are honored; everyone else will be presumed to be an organ donor. PC is a policy that is in effect in over 20 countries. If their citizens can do it, our compassionate nation can also (On average, those countries have only a 4% opt-out rate). The AMA and British Med. Assoc. have voiced support for PC (the AMA pursuant to AMA Opinion 2.155).

Existing Presumed Consent legislation has been filed in the filed in the Texas House of Representatives and is ready to be filed in the California Assembly. The bills have specific provisions for insuring every adult is queried and his or her choice is honored, and the bills contain provisions for an opt-out registry of those who make an election under this legislation.  

Policy makers should also focus attention to considerations or benefits to donor families that will increase the rates of donation, and the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services should redefine by regulation the meaning of “valuable consideration” per the National Organ Transplant Act. He shall be empowered to authorize demonstration projects aimed at increasing organ donation rates applying the concept of valuable consideration but not the trafficking of human organs. Accommodations to achieve the above shall be referred to as “Donation Benefits,” rather than termed as “inducements” or “incentives.” 

New organ donor policies would not only provide organs for many more dying souls on transplant lists than is now possible, but they would also reduce the need for living donor transplants, split liver transplantation, artificial organs, hepatocyte transplantation, and xenotransplantation.

"But with the emphasis on individual rights in our country, they would never pass in Congress," some argue. We'll never know unless we try and we owe it to all 84,000 to give it our best effort and start talking about it. As transplant surgeon, Adela Casas, MD, said, "I think it will be a hard road but a battle worth fighting for."

Please join with us and come out publicly for PC and “donation benefits” in your speeches and publications and by voicing your strong support to your peers. On behalf of those in transplant ICU’s across the country, we hope you will follow the lead of the ALF and support these suggestions and state so publicly.

A sample list of esteemed eminent physicians and individuals who support this letter follows.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best Regards,

Your Name:

Address:

Phone:

A partial list of Presumed Consent supporters who have authorized the use of their name on this letter:

-- Richard Darling, DDS; 2003 National Public Citizen of the Year; Board of Directors: United Organ Transplant Association; Ambassador: OneLegacy, a transplant donor network; Author: Coma Life, an autobiographical memoir of life "within" coma and survival over hepatitis C induced liver cancer, three liver transplants, heart attack, diabetes

At the Loma Linda University Medical Center:
-- Waldo Concepcion, M.D., Member ASTS, Director of Liver, Pancreas, and Kidney Transplantation; Director of the Medical Center Transplantation Institute Education and Research Fund; Associate Professor of Surgery
-- Okechukwa Ojogho, M.D., Member, ASTS, Director, Pediatric and Adult Kidney, Pancreas Transplantation; Associate Director, Liver Transplantation; Associate Professor of Surgery
-- Pedro Baron, M.D., Member, ASTS, Director of Pediatric and Adult Liver Transplantation; Associate Professor of Surgery,
-- Donald Hillebrand, M.D., Hepatologist; Medical Director, Liver Transplantation, Chief of Hepatology; Assistant Professor of Medicine;  
-- Richard Swabb, M.D., Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Board Certified in Nephrology
-- Jill Weissman, Pharm. D., Transplant Pharmacist, Loma Linda University Medical Center
 
At the A.I. duPont Hospital for Children:
-- Adela T. Casas-Melley, M.D., Member, ASTS, Pediatric/Transplant Surgeon, Editorial Board, Transplant Chronicles
 
At the University of Southern California:
-- Nicolas Jabbour, M.D., Member, ASTS, Associate Director, Liver Transplant Program

At the University of Pennsylvania:
-- Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., Emanuel & Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics Chair, Department of Medical Ethics and Director, Center for Bioethics
 
At the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center:
-- John J. Fung, MD, PhD, Chief Operating Officer; Chief, Division of Transplantation Surgery; Director of Liver Services; Thomas E. Starzl Professor of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
-- Thomas Cacciarelli, M.D., Assistant Professor of Surgery, Liver Transplantation
-- Raymond M. Planinsic, MD, Director of Hepatic, Intestinal and Multivisceral Transplantation Anesthesiology
 
At the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
-- Luis F Angel, MD, Assistant Professor Pulmonary and Critical Care, Director of Interventional Pulmonary, Co-Director of Lung Transplantation Program, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, Mail Code 7841, San Antonio, TX 78229-3900

At the University of California – Davis Medical Center:

-- Lorenzo Rossaro, M.D., Medical Director, Liver Transplant Program, Chief of Gastroenterology and Hepatology

-- Phil Berry, M.D., Advisory Committee for Organ Transplantation (ACOT) appointed by Secretary Tommie Thompson, Health & Human Services, 2001-2004; Past President, Texas Medical Association; President, Texas Medical Assoc. Foundation; Past Member, Board of Directors and Finance Committee, UNOS 

-- Terence McCarthy, President and Founder; Dave Courtney, Vice President and Director of Public Relations; The Presumed Consent Foundation

--James N. Eustermann M.D. FACS; Board Certified General Surgeon; Diplomat, American Board of Surgery; Fellow, American College of Surgeons; Medical Director

-- Leonard J. Morse, MD; Commissioner of Public Health, Worcester, Massachusetts; Professor of Clinical Medicine and Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Massachusetts Medical School; Chair Emeritus, American Medical Association’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs; Past-President of the Massachusetts Medical Society (Presumed Consent support pursuant to AMA Opinion 2.155)

-- Tricia Lupole, National Coordinator, Hepatitis C's Movement for Awareness

-- Bill Remak, Chairman, California Hepatitis C Task Force 
 
-- Ralph H. Treiman, President, American Liver Foundation, Greater Los Angeles Chapter
 
-- Don Goss, Chairman and CEO, United Organ Transplant Association 

-- Bill Roberts, Bill Roberts Consulting Services, Patient Advocate: Liver Disease; Member: TRIO National, TRIO Thousand Oaks, American Liver Foundation LA Chapter, American Diabetes Association, United Organ Transplant Association, The Presumed Consent Foundation, American Heart Association, The FAIR Foundation, UNOS Region 5,

ØThis letter was prepared utilizing language from the American Liver Foundation’s new organ-donor resolutions that can be viewed here: http://webc1223.slwd1.com/organdonation/alf.htm.)

ØDonation benefits as authorized by the State of Wisconsin may be viewed here: http://webc1223.slwd1.com/organdonation/donorsgettaxbreak.htm

Donation benefits proposed by distinguished citizens may be viewed here:
http://www.mackinac.org/article.asp?ID=5040