The AMA recently backed tweaking federal law to allow pilot projects providing financial incentives for organ donation after death.
As more people die waiting for transplants that never come, we’ve been hearing more support for paying organ donors or their families. Some people are even arguing that we should pay live kidney donors, just as we pay women who donate their eggs.
But, as Sally Satel writes in Slate today, the National Kidney Foundation — a key player in this space — remains a staunch opponent of these sorts of incentives. Satel is an MD, a kidney recipient and she has a book coming out that argues in favor of paying kidney donors.
In its position paper on the issue, the foundation makes both ethical and practical arguments against payment.
“Offering money for organs can be viewed as an attempt to coerce economically disadvantaged Americans to participate in organ donation,” the paper says.
And: “While payment for organs has real potential to undermine the transplant system in this country, its ability to increase the supply or organs for transplantation is questionable.”
Satel cites a recent survey commissioned by the U.S. government that found payments would make 19% of people more likely (and 9% of people less likely) to donate the organs of a deceased relative. And, she points out, when someone donates his body to science the costs of cremation or burial are covered after the body has been used dissected or used in an experiment.
The kidney foundation does do good work, writes Satel, who is affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute. But, she concludes, “the foundation’s recalcitrance on financial incentives for organ donors is hurting the very constituency it purports to serve.”