People Die Waiting For Organs. Here's How To Stop That From Happening

More than 121,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for an organ transplant. Some will sit in limbo for as many as five years before receiving an organ. Others won’t live long enough to reach the top of the waiting list: every day in the U.S., 22 people die while waiting for a live-saving transplant.

There’s no easy solution to the twin problems of organ scarcity and staggering waiting times for transplants.

Recruiting more living donors could help shrink wait times. But donating an organ is no easy task . Donors are covered by the recipient’s insurance for the actual procedure but are barred by law from receiving money to cover their travel costs or to pay for their recovery. The hefty financial burden often dissuades would-be donors from contributing their organs.

Deciding who gets an organ when is tricky business as well. When an organ becomes available, potential recipients who live nearby and whose blood type matches the organ usually get first priority. Hospitals also allocate organs based on how urgently patients need them . But there's still much debate over how best to match and distribute organs.

In a panel discussion hosted by Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health on Friday, experts will discuss these and other issues. They’ll address organ scarcity, the ethics of matching and allocating organs and strategies for reducing the need for organ transplants in the first place.

They’ll also discuss technological innovations that have allowed scientists to produce artificial organs, as well as controversies around the organ markets that exist in some countries, and the thorny ethics of presumed consent rules, which allow doctors in some countries, though not the U.S., to presume that patients have consented to donating their organs unless they say otherwise. 

The panel, presented by the Dr. Lawrence H. and Roberta Cohn Forums, will include Dr. Francis Delmonico, professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital Transplant Center; Dr. Daniel Wikler, professor of ethics and population health at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health; Dr. Doris Taylor, director of regenerative medicine research at the Texas Heart Institute; and Dr. James Yoo, professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. 

The panel will be moderated by David Freeman, managing editor for Impact and Innovation at The Huffington post.