ORGAN RULES
WHO GETS TO DECIDE HOW ORGANS ARE DISTRIBUTED FOR TRANSPLANT? YOU DO, ELIZABETH TRACEY REPORTS
Have you ever thought about the most equitable way to distribute organs for transplant? Distributing them is UNOS, the United Network for Organ Sharing, but right now, you can comment on whether kidneys should be paired with recipients with similar predicted longevity. Dorry Segev, one author of this idea and a transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins, explains why the public is invited to join the discussion.
SEGEV: This serves the public. It’s the public that’s on the list, it’s the public that’s the donors, and so it’s the public that decides how the national resources are allocated. UNOS is unique in that they have physicians on UNOS, they have former recipients, former donors and people from the public all sit on UNOS committees. And then when the committee has a concept that they’d like to vet then they send it out to the public and get back comments. :30
So if you care to, weigh in at unos.org. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.
