  
HHS Secretary announces national organ donation initiative
Last Updated: 2001-04-17 17:20:06 EDT (Reuters Health)
By Todd Zwillich
WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson unveiled a new national initiative Tuesday to encourage individuals to donate their organs as a way to reduce the number of Americans who die each year while waiting for transplants.
Thompson told audiences in Washington today that the new initiative will also educate families about the importance of making good on the pledges.
Over 76,000 people who need transplants are currently on waiting lists for organs, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). The number has tripled since 1990, as available transplant procedures become more common and efficient. HHS figures indicate that an average of 5500 people die each year waiting for matched organs or bone marrow for transplants.
"The need for organ transplants is increasingly outstripping the supply," Thompson said.
Seventeen large corporations agreed to promote organ donation among their employees as part of the HHS initiative. Thompson praised the United Autoworkers International Union and the "big three" car makers--Ford, General Motors, and Daimler/Chrysler--for including provisions to promote organ, tissue, and blood donation in their contract agreement last year.
HHS will review organ registries in 16 states to see which could serve as a model for a possible national organ registry designed to make donation and allocation more efficient, Thompson said.
The system of organ allocation has been a source of bitter controversy between HHS and UNOS since 1998. Last year, then-secretary Donna Shalala approved federal rules that favored medical necessity over geography in prioritizing organ recipients. UNOS, which holds the federal contract to administer the nation's organ distribution network, opposed the move on the grounds that it would create a single national system for organ sharing and would reduce the effectiveness of transplants.
Thompson helped bring a lawsuit against HHS over the rules when he was still governor of Wisconsin. A federal judge dismissed the case last November. Thompson told reporters that he would not renew a challenge to organ distribution rules set under the Clinton administration, saying that increased numbers of organ donations would solve the problem of competition for organs.
"Right now I'm more active in trying to get the whole donor community to work as one," he said.
HHS announced today that it is directing $3 million in grants to fund pilot projects designed to boost both living and cadaveric organ donation. The HHS initiative will include the design of a medal to honor families of deceased persons who donate the decedent's organs to help others.
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