Promoting Organ Donations the Gift of Life
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Organ recipient campaigns for organ donations
Organ recipient campaigns for organ donations
By Beth Irwin
Special to Toledo Free Press
Imagine being 14 years old and told you have acute liver failure, going from diagnosis to critically ill to receiving a donor liver in less than a month.
“It all happened so fast,” said Lexi Schultz, now a 16-year-old sophomore at Central Catholic High School. “I was pretty sick, but I remember thinking about how it was going to turn out, what was going to happen to me.”
Schultz and her family aren't strangers to serious illnesses. At age 5, she was diagnosed with the first of several autoimmune diseases, hypothyroidism. A year later came a diagnosis of Polyarticular Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, also known as JRA, which causes chronic joint pain. Schultz didn't let either diagnosis slow her down. She continued taking dance lessons and playing sports for nearly 10 years.
In April 2005, however, another autoimmune disease attacked Schultz's large intestine, which was surgically removed two months later. Then, as she recovered from a total colectomy and corrective surgery, came the acute liver failure.
Schultz's mother, Andrea, said no one is sure what led to the liver failure, though her liver was already weakened by cirrhosis. The illness became so critical and advanced that “we met with the transplant team at Mott's Children's Hospital [at the University of Michigan] on Oct. 11, 2005, and the transplant took place on Oct. 18. Lexi was only on the transplant list for four days before a donor was found.”
The donor was a 21-year-old Michigan man whose vehicle was struck by a drunk driver. The Schultz family maintains contact with the donor's family. They have spent time together including a recent outing to Cedar Point. Lexi Schultz keeps a photo of the young man whose liver saved her life.
Lexi and Andrea Schultz support all the organizations that have played prominent roles in their medical journey, including the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Arthritis Foundation and Life Connection of Ohio. Working with Life Connection, Lexi Schultz will tell her transplantation story to middle school students at St. Pius X School on Nov. 9 and spoke to parishioners during masses on Nov. 10 and 11 for the National Donor Sabbath. The Sabbath is a weekend in which religious and health care communities work together to bring organ and tissue donation information to congregations.
Nancy Ellis, community relations manager at Life Connection of Ohio, said studies have indicated that many people consult their clergy when making decisions about organ and tissue donation, and almost every major religion supports it.
“While religious viewpoints may vary slightly,” Ellis said, “the commonality is that organ and tissue donation is a person's final act of charity and love.”
Ellis also said congregations vary how they recognize the National Donor Sabbath, including the use of bulletin inserts, special prayers for those awaiting transplants and for those donated, sermons, donation messages on outdoor display boards, or testimonials from people whose lives have been touched by organ and tissue donation.
“More than 97,000 people are waiting for life-saving transplants. Every 12 minutes, another person is added to the national transplant list,” Ellis said. In 2006, 193 Ohioans died while awaiting transplants.
“The Donor Sabbath is a great opportunity to create awareness about organ donation among parishioners, and maybe open dialogue between family members. It's important to make your organ donation wishes known to your family so they don't have to make the decision in the hospital under emotional circumstances,” Andrea Schultz said.
In spite of her health problems, Lexi Schultz leads an active life and maintains a 3.0-plus grade point average at Central Catholic. This summer, she served as a junior counselor at Camp Busy Bee, a camp for children with arthritis sponsored by the Arthritis Foundation and hosted by Camp Miakonda. She also attended her first “transplant camp” for young organ recipients, and co-produced a five-minute DVD as a camp project.
“The arthritis is really the only thing that frustrates me sometimes,” she said. “If I go to Cedar Point, I can barely make it to the car at the end of the day. But I just take things hour by hour, day by day.”
Last month, Lexi Schultz was one of five recipients of the Connecting Point TRIUMPH Awards for her perseverance through her health challenges, from the transplant to the chronic pain of JRA. She was nominated by Jan Florian, the nurse at Central Catholic. In her essay to the nominating committee, Schultz summed up her experiences this way: “Giving up may be easy, but it's just not worth it.”
By Beth Irwin
Special to Toledo Free Press
Imagine being 14 years old and told you have acute liver failure, going from diagnosis to critically ill to receiving a donor liver in less than a month.
“It all happened so fast,” said Lexi Schultz, now a 16-year-old sophomore at Central Catholic High School. “I was pretty sick, but I remember thinking about how it was going to turn out, what was going to happen to me.”
Schultz and her family aren't strangers to serious illnesses. At age 5, she was diagnosed with the first of several autoimmune diseases, hypothyroidism. A year later came a diagnosis of Polyarticular Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, also known as JRA, which causes chronic joint pain. Schultz didn't let either diagnosis slow her down. She continued taking dance lessons and playing sports for nearly 10 years.
In April 2005, however, another autoimmune disease attacked Schultz's large intestine, which was surgically removed two months later. Then, as she recovered from a total colectomy and corrective surgery, came the acute liver failure.
Schultz's mother, Andrea, said no one is sure what led to the liver failure, though her liver was already weakened by cirrhosis. The illness became so critical and advanced that “we met with the transplant team at Mott's Children's Hospital [at the University of Michigan] on Oct. 11, 2005, and the transplant took place on Oct. 18. Lexi was only on the transplant list for four days before a donor was found.”
The donor was a 21-year-old Michigan man whose vehicle was struck by a drunk driver. The Schultz family maintains contact with the donor's family. They have spent time together including a recent outing to Cedar Point. Lexi Schultz keeps a photo of the young man whose liver saved her life.
Lexi and Andrea Schultz support all the organizations that have played prominent roles in their medical journey, including the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Arthritis Foundation and Life Connection of Ohio. Working with Life Connection, Lexi Schultz will tell her transplantation story to middle school students at St. Pius X School on Nov. 9 and spoke to parishioners during masses on Nov. 10 and 11 for the National Donor Sabbath. The Sabbath is a weekend in which religious and health care communities work together to bring organ and tissue donation information to congregations.
Nancy Ellis, community relations manager at Life Connection of Ohio, said studies have indicated that many people consult their clergy when making decisions about organ and tissue donation, and almost every major religion supports it.
“While religious viewpoints may vary slightly,” Ellis said, “the commonality is that organ and tissue donation is a person's final act of charity and love.”
Ellis also said congregations vary how they recognize the National Donor Sabbath, including the use of bulletin inserts, special prayers for those awaiting transplants and for those donated, sermons, donation messages on outdoor display boards, or testimonials from people whose lives have been touched by organ and tissue donation.
“More than 97,000 people are waiting for life-saving transplants. Every 12 minutes, another person is added to the national transplant list,” Ellis said. In 2006, 193 Ohioans died while awaiting transplants.
“The Donor Sabbath is a great opportunity to create awareness about organ donation among parishioners, and maybe open dialogue between family members. It's important to make your organ donation wishes known to your family so they don't have to make the decision in the hospital under emotional circumstances,” Andrea Schultz said.
In spite of her health problems, Lexi Schultz leads an active life and maintains a 3.0-plus grade point average at Central Catholic. This summer, she served as a junior counselor at Camp Busy Bee, a camp for children with arthritis sponsored by the Arthritis Foundation and hosted by Camp Miakonda. She also attended her first “transplant camp” for young organ recipients, and co-produced a five-minute DVD as a camp project.
“The arthritis is really the only thing that frustrates me sometimes,” she said. “If I go to Cedar Point, I can barely make it to the car at the end of the day. But I just take things hour by hour, day by day.”
Last month, Lexi Schultz was one of five recipients of the Connecting Point TRIUMPH Awards for her perseverance through her health challenges, from the transplant to the chronic pain of JRA. She was nominated by Jan Florian, the nurse at Central Catholic. In her essay to the nominating committee, Schultz summed up her experiences this way: “Giving up may be easy, but it's just not worth it.”
Living donors increase in U.S.
Living donors increase in U.S.
Kidney transplants are the most frequent type, and the number is up nearly tenfold since 1995.
By Mark Berman
The number of living kidney donors is on the rise.
In 1988, there were 1,817 kidney donations nationally involving living donors and 3,874 involving a deceased donor. Last year, there were 6,434 living kidney donors and 7,181 deceased donors, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
There were 154 living kidney donors in Virginia in 2006 and 129 deceased donors.
There are more than 2,500 people in Virginia waiting for organ transplants, and most are waiting for kidneys, said Dena Reynolds, spokeswoman for LifeNet Health, the agency that coordinates organ and tissue donations in Virginia.
An average of three people in Virginia die each week waiting for a transplant, she said.
The waiting period in Virginia for a deceased kidney donor is five to seven years.
"There is a huge shortage of available kidneys for patients in the United States, so we're relying more and more on living donation," said Dr. Kenneth Brayman, director of the kidney transplant program for the University of Virginia Medical Center and the surgeon who performed Kevin Board's transplant. "The immunosuppression today is so good that we basically are not concerned about rejection nearly as much as we used to be."
UVa Medical Center performs about 120 kidney transplants a year, Brayman said, and about half of the recipients get kidneys from a live donor. He said more of the live donors are nonrelatives, including friends and spouses, than blood relatives.
The number of living kidney donations where someone makes a donation to a friend or acquaintance is also on the rise. There have been 795 such transplants nationally this year (as of Nov. 2) and there were 1,438 last year, compared with 155 in 1995.
Kidney transplants are the most frequent type of living donation. There is little risk of living with one kidney because the remaining kidney can do the work of two kidneys, according to the OPTN. Still, donating a kidney is not a decision to be made lightly.
Among the risks for donors are complications following surgery such as infection or bleeding.
"There could be any kinds of complications, all the way up to death," said Anne Paschke, a spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing. "There could be an artery nicked during surgery. There could be infection. ... There hasn't been enough following of everyone ... over time to know what other potential long-term risks there might be."
There is no increased risk of high blood pressure, kidney failure and death among donors compared to the general population, Brayman said.
"But it still is a major surgery," Brayman said. "It's small, but there is a defined risk. ... We've never had one, but there have been deaths reported."
The survival rates for the recipient are better with kidneys from living donors than from deceased donors, Paschke said.
People can sign up to be an organ and tissue donor at the Department of Motor Vehicles or at save7lives.org.
Kidney transplants are the most frequent type, and the number is up nearly tenfold since 1995.
By Mark Berman
The number of living kidney donors is on the rise.
In 1988, there were 1,817 kidney donations nationally involving living donors and 3,874 involving a deceased donor. Last year, there were 6,434 living kidney donors and 7,181 deceased donors, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
There were 154 living kidney donors in Virginia in 2006 and 129 deceased donors.
There are more than 2,500 people in Virginia waiting for organ transplants, and most are waiting for kidneys, said Dena Reynolds, spokeswoman for LifeNet Health, the agency that coordinates organ and tissue donations in Virginia.
An average of three people in Virginia die each week waiting for a transplant, she said.
The waiting period in Virginia for a deceased kidney donor is five to seven years.
"There is a huge shortage of available kidneys for patients in the United States, so we're relying more and more on living donation," said Dr. Kenneth Brayman, director of the kidney transplant program for the University of Virginia Medical Center and the surgeon who performed Kevin Board's transplant. "The immunosuppression today is so good that we basically are not concerned about rejection nearly as much as we used to be."
UVa Medical Center performs about 120 kidney transplants a year, Brayman said, and about half of the recipients get kidneys from a live donor. He said more of the live donors are nonrelatives, including friends and spouses, than blood relatives.
The number of living kidney donations where someone makes a donation to a friend or acquaintance is also on the rise. There have been 795 such transplants nationally this year (as of Nov. 2) and there were 1,438 last year, compared with 155 in 1995.
Kidney transplants are the most frequent type of living donation. There is little risk of living with one kidney because the remaining kidney can do the work of two kidneys, according to the OPTN. Still, donating a kidney is not a decision to be made lightly.
Among the risks for donors are complications following surgery such as infection or bleeding.
"There could be any kinds of complications, all the way up to death," said Anne Paschke, a spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing. "There could be an artery nicked during surgery. There could be infection. ... There hasn't been enough following of everyone ... over time to know what other potential long-term risks there might be."
There is no increased risk of high blood pressure, kidney failure and death among donors compared to the general population, Brayman said.
"But it still is a major surgery," Brayman said. "It's small, but there is a defined risk. ... We've never had one, but there have been deaths reported."
The survival rates for the recipient are better with kidneys from living donors than from deceased donors, Paschke said.
People can sign up to be an organ and tissue donor at the Department of Motor Vehicles or at save7lives.org.
Allegheny General starts liver transplants
Allegheny General starts liver transplants
By Luis Fabregas
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, November 16, 2007
For three days Chrissie Berman felt nauseous and assumed she had stomach flu.
When she felt so sick that she had to call 911, she wound up at Allegheny General Hospital, where doctors quickly diagnosed her with an often deadly illness that stopped her liver from working.
"The next thing I remember is waking up and my mom telling me that I have a new liver," Berman, 28, of Robinson said Thursday. "I was in shock."
There was something else Berman didn't know: She became the first liver transplant patient at Allegheny General.
The hospital's program, AGH officials say, not only gives patients an option to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's long-standing program but is critical to accommodating the large number of patients with liver disease. AGH's center for digestive health, for example, refers up to 30 patients a year to other transplant centers.
Without this program, patients whose health insurance coverage doesn't include UPMC would be forced to travel out of state for a liver transplant, AGH officials said.
"We were sending patients away at a very frightening time," said Mary Ann Palumbi, senior director of transplantation. "They couldn't stay at the place where they're comfortable and where they've always received care."
AGH for years has had programs in heart, kidney and pancreas transplantation. The liver program, announced in 2006, has 10 patients on its waiting list, Palumbi said. Berman's surgery was Nov. 1. A second patient whose name was not disclosed had a liver transplant Nov. 8.
Berman was admitted to the North Side hospital Oct. 28. Doctors diagnosed her with fulminant hepatic failure, or acute liver failure, which happens when liver cells are injured and die. The cells are replaced with scar tissue instead of normal liver cells. A common cause can be ingestion of high doses of acetaminophen, often taken as Tylenol.
Dr. Thomas V. Cacciarelli, the surgeon who led the transplant, said tests haven't determined what caused Berman's illness and more tests are pending. "When the liver was taken out, it was pretty much dead," he said.
The severity of the illness bumped her to the top of the regional liver transplant waiting list. Within three days, she received a liver from an 18-year-old donor from Delaware. Cacciarelli performed the six-hour surgery along with Dr. Mark Roh, chairman of AGH's department of surgery.
Cacciarelli is a UPMC-trained surgeon who has performed more than 500 transplants and is director of the liver transplant program at the Pittsburgh VA Healthcare System.
"I'm pretty pleased with the way it worked out," he said.
Berman, who grew up in Crafton, is a stay-at-home mother to three: Gabrielle, 7, Tyler, 4, and Julian, 1. Her husband, Bradley, is a manager at Vocelli Pizza.
"It took a good day to actually sink in," said Berman, who long ago agreed to be an organ donor herself. "I never thought I would ever need a new liver."
After a two-week stay at the hospital, she is recuperating at home and doctors said she is expected to take anti-rejection drugs for life. The hospital will provide follow-up care, including continuous monitoring of her liver function.
"I can't rave enough about the quality of their care," she said. "They treated me like I was one of their own, like a family member. They could not have been any better."
Luis Fabregas can be reached at lfabregas@tribweb.com
By Luis Fabregas
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, November 16, 2007
For three days Chrissie Berman felt nauseous and assumed she had stomach flu.
When she felt so sick that she had to call 911, she wound up at Allegheny General Hospital, where doctors quickly diagnosed her with an often deadly illness that stopped her liver from working.
"The next thing I remember is waking up and my mom telling me that I have a new liver," Berman, 28, of Robinson said Thursday. "I was in shock."
There was something else Berman didn't know: She became the first liver transplant patient at Allegheny General.
The hospital's program, AGH officials say, not only gives patients an option to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's long-standing program but is critical to accommodating the large number of patients with liver disease. AGH's center for digestive health, for example, refers up to 30 patients a year to other transplant centers.
Without this program, patients whose health insurance coverage doesn't include UPMC would be forced to travel out of state for a liver transplant, AGH officials said.
"We were sending patients away at a very frightening time," said Mary Ann Palumbi, senior director of transplantation. "They couldn't stay at the place where they're comfortable and where they've always received care."
AGH for years has had programs in heart, kidney and pancreas transplantation. The liver program, announced in 2006, has 10 patients on its waiting list, Palumbi said. Berman's surgery was Nov. 1. A second patient whose name was not disclosed had a liver transplant Nov. 8.
Berman was admitted to the North Side hospital Oct. 28. Doctors diagnosed her with fulminant hepatic failure, or acute liver failure, which happens when liver cells are injured and die. The cells are replaced with scar tissue instead of normal liver cells. A common cause can be ingestion of high doses of acetaminophen, often taken as Tylenol.
Dr. Thomas V. Cacciarelli, the surgeon who led the transplant, said tests haven't determined what caused Berman's illness and more tests are pending. "When the liver was taken out, it was pretty much dead," he said.
The severity of the illness bumped her to the top of the regional liver transplant waiting list. Within three days, she received a liver from an 18-year-old donor from Delaware. Cacciarelli performed the six-hour surgery along with Dr. Mark Roh, chairman of AGH's department of surgery.
Cacciarelli is a UPMC-trained surgeon who has performed more than 500 transplants and is director of the liver transplant program at the Pittsburgh VA Healthcare System.
"I'm pretty pleased with the way it worked out," he said.
Berman, who grew up in Crafton, is a stay-at-home mother to three: Gabrielle, 7, Tyler, 4, and Julian, 1. Her husband, Bradley, is a manager at Vocelli Pizza.
"It took a good day to actually sink in," said Berman, who long ago agreed to be an organ donor herself. "I never thought I would ever need a new liver."
After a two-week stay at the hospital, she is recuperating at home and doctors said she is expected to take anti-rejection drugs for life. The hospital will provide follow-up care, including continuous monitoring of her liver function.
"I can't rave enough about the quality of their care," she said. "They treated me like I was one of their own, like a family member. They could not have been any better."
Luis Fabregas can be reached at lfabregas@tribweb.com
Thursday, November 15, 2007
L.A. transplants give new look to Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving at the dinner table
L.A. transplants give new look to Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving at the dinner table
By Barbara Correa, Staff writer
Article Launched: 11/14/2007 07:14:25 PM PST
Rachel Posner, a 30-year-old financial supervisor, has a huge extended family in Baltimore, but she'll be spending this Thanksgiving at Canter's Deli, the famous Fairfax District eatery.
Like countless other L.A. transplants, she'll be spending the holiday locally with friends rather than boarding a plane for a trip that would take longer than the time she would actually spend with relatives.
"I don't have anyone here, but my friends are a second family," said Posner, who posted notice of the Thanksgiving dinner at Canter's at the social networking Web site Meetup.com.
Posner's extended family includes hundreds of aunts, uncles and cousins, who meet monthly in Baltimore to discuss family business.
The clan also meets for big dinners at Passover and sometime in December, and Posner tries to get back for those events.
But Thanksgiving is different.
"We used to do the traditional Thanksgiving dinner at home, and then my parents split when I was in my teens. Then my grandma did it, but she's 94. So now everybody does their own thing."
One year, when Posner was living in Atlanta, she wound up spending Thanksgiving alone with a TV dinner. After that, she vowed to always have a plan for the holiday.
She said at least half the group she expects at Canter's is originally from the East Coast, with no relatives in Southern California. However, there's always a contingent who does have family nearby but would rather spend the holiday with friends.
Indeed, plenty of natives prefer the friends-as-family Thanksgiving, too.
Yoga teacher Psalm Isadora grew up on a commune in Mendocino but instead of eating turkey with family, she plans to enjoy vegetarian and vegan Indian food - and turkey from Koo Koo Roo - at a Methodist church in Santa Monica.
"I usually end up at someone else's party, so I thought it would be fun to throw this event," said Isadora, who has fond memories of weekly potlucks with other families in the commune.
Her potluck at the Church in Ocean Park will bring guests from Altadena, Torrance and Long Beach, and there may be a little yoga thrown in, if guests are up for it after stuffing themselves.
"Breaking bread together is viewed as sacred ritual in many spiritual traditions, and is simply a pleasant way to spend time together," Isadora said on her online ad for the party.
Bill Cunningham hasn't had a traditional family Thanksgiving in 13 years, not since he moved to Los Angeles from Buffalo, N.Y.
In the intervening years, he's spent the most American of holidays in the company of friends. One year, he and a roommate drove to Yosemite, where they sat around a campfire and dined on precooked turkey and trimmings from Ralphs.
This year, Cunningham, who recently moved from Van Nuys to a loft in downtown Los Angeles, is organizing an Orphan Thanksgiving pub crawl that will end up in the back room of a bar where friend and stranger alike will share a Thanksgiving potluck.
"I'm thinking about Seven Grand Whiskey Bar," he said. "I'm going to see if that's available."
barbara.correa@dailynews.com
By Barbara Correa, Staff writer
Article Launched: 11/14/2007 07:14:25 PM PST
Rachel Posner, a 30-year-old financial supervisor, has a huge extended family in Baltimore, but she'll be spending this Thanksgiving at Canter's Deli, the famous Fairfax District eatery.
Like countless other L.A. transplants, she'll be spending the holiday locally with friends rather than boarding a plane for a trip that would take longer than the time she would actually spend with relatives.
"I don't have anyone here, but my friends are a second family," said Posner, who posted notice of the Thanksgiving dinner at Canter's at the social networking Web site Meetup.com.
Posner's extended family includes hundreds of aunts, uncles and cousins, who meet monthly in Baltimore to discuss family business.
The clan also meets for big dinners at Passover and sometime in December, and Posner tries to get back for those events.
But Thanksgiving is different.
"We used to do the traditional Thanksgiving dinner at home, and then my parents split when I was in my teens. Then my grandma did it, but she's 94. So now everybody does their own thing."
One year, when Posner was living in Atlanta, she wound up spending Thanksgiving alone with a TV dinner. After that, she vowed to always have a plan for the holiday.
She said at least half the group she expects at Canter's is originally from the East Coast, with no relatives in Southern California. However, there's always a contingent who does have family nearby but would rather spend the holiday with friends.
Indeed, plenty of natives prefer the friends-as-family Thanksgiving, too.
Yoga teacher Psalm Isadora grew up on a commune in Mendocino but instead of eating turkey with family, she plans to enjoy vegetarian and vegan Indian food - and turkey from Koo Koo Roo - at a Methodist church in Santa Monica.
"I usually end up at someone else's party, so I thought it would be fun to throw this event," said Isadora, who has fond memories of weekly potlucks with other families in the commune.
Her potluck at the Church in Ocean Park will bring guests from Altadena, Torrance and Long Beach, and there may be a little yoga thrown in, if guests are up for it after stuffing themselves.
"Breaking bread together is viewed as sacred ritual in many spiritual traditions, and is simply a pleasant way to spend time together," Isadora said on her online ad for the party.
Bill Cunningham hasn't had a traditional family Thanksgiving in 13 years, not since he moved to Los Angeles from Buffalo, N.Y.
In the intervening years, he's spent the most American of holidays in the company of friends. One year, he and a roommate drove to Yosemite, where they sat around a campfire and dined on precooked turkey and trimmings from Ralphs.
This year, Cunningham, who recently moved from Van Nuys to a loft in downtown Los Angeles, is organizing an Orphan Thanksgiving pub crawl that will end up in the back room of a bar where friend and stranger alike will share a Thanksgiving potluck.
"I'm thinking about Seven Grand Whiskey Bar," he said. "I'm going to see if that's available."
barbara.correa@dailynews.com
Organ donor awareness topic of senior luncheon at Pioneer
Organ donor awareness topic of senior luncheon at Pioneer
By LOU WHITMIRE
News Journal
SHELBY -- Seniors in the Medical Technologies Health Academy at Pioneer Career and Technology Center presented their senior project -- titled Organ Donation Awareness -- at Tuesday's monthly senior citizen luncheon.
About 60 guests enjoyed a turkey dinner while Helen Johnson of Ontario High School talked candidly about the importance of organ donation.
"Looking back at that very day at the hospital, I thought, 'I'm one of the lucky ones,' " said Johnson, who read a quote from a mother who lost her 19-year-old daughter in an automobile accident. "I left the hospital knowing that my daughter's life was going to go on."
"Other people who lose a child leave with their grief and nothing else," Johnson said, explaining that the woman's daughter was an organ donor.
As she and Pioneer classmates distributed information from Lifeline of Ohio, and how to join the Ohio Donor registry, Johnson shared facts about organ donation.
Johnson, 17, who plans to become a nurse, said her friend's father is waiting for a liver transplant.
"My father also needs a liver transplant," she said.
Senior students, including Rebecca Bowman, whose home school is Crestview High School, handed out candy to the audience at the end of each presentation as a reminder that "you could save a life."
Nick and Kathy Kreinbrink, of Shelby, came to enjoy the luncheon and program, bringing with them Nick's mother, Edna Kreinbrink, who is 92.
"We're enjoying it," Nick Kreinbrink said, after students in the criminal justice program presented the U.S. flag before the luncheon.
Entertainment was provided by Nick Pounds and Shelly Petty.
Pounds, who is enrolled in the medical technologies program at Pioneer and plans to become a radiologist, played guitar while Petty sang. A senior at Northmor High School, Petty traveled to Shelby for the program.
Many students helped make the monthly luncheon a success. Culinary arts students prepared and served the meal, and criminal justice students assisted guests with parking. Cosmetology and horticulture students also helped out at the event.
The crowd was so large they spilled over from the restaurant into a classroom.
For more information about organ donations, go to www.lifelineofohio.org on the Internet.
lwhitmire@nncogannett.com
By LOU WHITMIRE
News Journal
SHELBY -- Seniors in the Medical Technologies Health Academy at Pioneer Career and Technology Center presented their senior project -- titled Organ Donation Awareness -- at Tuesday's monthly senior citizen luncheon.
About 60 guests enjoyed a turkey dinner while Helen Johnson of Ontario High School talked candidly about the importance of organ donation.
"Looking back at that very day at the hospital, I thought, 'I'm one of the lucky ones,' " said Johnson, who read a quote from a mother who lost her 19-year-old daughter in an automobile accident. "I left the hospital knowing that my daughter's life was going to go on."
"Other people who lose a child leave with their grief and nothing else," Johnson said, explaining that the woman's daughter was an organ donor.
As she and Pioneer classmates distributed information from Lifeline of Ohio, and how to join the Ohio Donor registry, Johnson shared facts about organ donation.
Johnson, 17, who plans to become a nurse, said her friend's father is waiting for a liver transplant.
"My father also needs a liver transplant," she said.
Senior students, including Rebecca Bowman, whose home school is Crestview High School, handed out candy to the audience at the end of each presentation as a reminder that "you could save a life."
Nick and Kathy Kreinbrink, of Shelby, came to enjoy the luncheon and program, bringing with them Nick's mother, Edna Kreinbrink, who is 92.
"We're enjoying it," Nick Kreinbrink said, after students in the criminal justice program presented the U.S. flag before the luncheon.
Entertainment was provided by Nick Pounds and Shelly Petty.
Pounds, who is enrolled in the medical technologies program at Pioneer and plans to become a radiologist, played guitar while Petty sang. A senior at Northmor High School, Petty traveled to Shelby for the program.
Many students helped make the monthly luncheon a success. Culinary arts students prepared and served the meal, and criminal justice students assisted guests with parking. Cosmetology and horticulture students also helped out at the event.
The crowd was so large they spilled over from the restaurant into a classroom.
For more information about organ donations, go to www.lifelineofohio.org on the Internet.
lwhitmire@nncogannett.com
MedPage Today
By Michael Smith, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Reviewed by Zsofia Szep, MD; Infectious Diseases Division, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
November 14, 2007
CHICAGO, Nov. 14 -- A single transplant donor has left four recipients infected with HIV, the first such case in more than 20 years, officials here said.
And, in what is apparently the first case of two viruses being transmitted by a transplant at the same time, all four recipients also were infected with hepatitis C.
The infections were not detected in the organ donor because the test used -- the Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay, or ELISA -- detects the antibodies to the two viruses.
But in the first weeks after infection -- 22 days for HIV and 82 for hepatitis C -- the antibody response is not strong enough to trigger a positive test.
So, if the donor had been infected only a few weeks before death, officials said, the test would have come back negative.
The transplants took place in January at the University of Chicago Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and Rush University Medical Center.
But it was only two weeks ago that the infections were discovered, according to Michael Millis, M.D., of the University of Chicago Hospitals.
The news was "very surprising and devastating" for the four recipients, Dr. Millis told reporters.
Public health officials in Chicago and at the CDC are trying to see whether any of the recipients have passed on either infection during the time since their transplants.
The CDC said the last case of HIV transmission because of a transplant took place in 1986, when three people in Virginia died of AIDS after receiving infected organs.
That was in the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, when safeguards were less stringent than today, officials said.
A spokesman for the United Network for Organ Sharing said there have been more than 400,000 organ transplants in the U.S. since the 1986 cases without a reported case of transmission.
"We believe there's already a very small risk of transmission through the safeguards we have in place," Joel Newman told reporters.
Once the infections were discovered, stored blood from the donor was re-tested using ELISA and also came back negative for both viruses.
Blood banks use a more sensitive test for HIV -- Nucleic Acid Amplification Testing, or NAAT -- which detects the viral genetic material directly, but that test is not routinely used in transplantation.
When the donor's blood was tested using NAAT, the HIV infection was detected.
A screening questionnaire showed that the donor had engaged in high-risk behavior, according to officials at Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donation, which tested and approved the organs for donation.
The nature of the high-risk behavior was not disclosed.
CDC guidelines advise not using organs and tissue from such high-risk patients unless the risk to the recipient of not getting the transplant is thought to be greater than the risk of HIV transmission and disease.
Many medical details -- including what organs were transplanted and how the donor died -- were not released because of privacy concerns. Officials at the University of Chicago Medical Center were quoted as saying only that the donor died "three days after traumatic injury."
Given that the donor was high-risk, all four of the recipients should have been tested for HIV within three months of the transplant, but that apparently was not done.
Matthew Kuehnert, M.D., director of blood, organ, and tissue safety with the CDC, said he was concerned that none of the hospitals appeared to have followed CDC guidelines for testing patients after a transplant.
It may be a sign, he said, that transplant centers don't take the risk of viral transmission as seriously as they should.
The more sensitive nucleic acid test might have prevented these infections, but that test also has a window in which it is too soon to detect infection -- about 12 days for HIV and 25 days for hepatitis C.
Also, the current test may be too time consuming to be used routinely in transplant cases.
Unlike blood, which is usually stored for one or two days while undergoing tests, organs typically can be stored for only a few hours, according to James Burdick, M.D., of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the national organ donation system.
But, Dr. Burdick added, "The chances of acquiring HIV from a donor are vanishingly small, and this one case doesn't prove differently."
Reviewed by Zsofia Szep, MD; Infectious Diseases Division, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
November 14, 2007
CHICAGO, Nov. 14 -- A single transplant donor has left four recipients infected with HIV, the first such case in more than 20 years, officials here said.
And, in what is apparently the first case of two viruses being transmitted by a transplant at the same time, all four recipients also were infected with hepatitis C.
The infections were not detected in the organ donor because the test used -- the Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay, or ELISA -- detects the antibodies to the two viruses.
But in the first weeks after infection -- 22 days for HIV and 82 for hepatitis C -- the antibody response is not strong enough to trigger a positive test.
So, if the donor had been infected only a few weeks before death, officials said, the test would have come back negative.
The transplants took place in January at the University of Chicago Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and Rush University Medical Center.
But it was only two weeks ago that the infections were discovered, according to Michael Millis, M.D., of the University of Chicago Hospitals.
The news was "very surprising and devastating" for the four recipients, Dr. Millis told reporters.
Public health officials in Chicago and at the CDC are trying to see whether any of the recipients have passed on either infection during the time since their transplants.
The CDC said the last case of HIV transmission because of a transplant took place in 1986, when three people in Virginia died of AIDS after receiving infected organs.
That was in the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, when safeguards were less stringent than today, officials said.
A spokesman for the United Network for Organ Sharing said there have been more than 400,000 organ transplants in the U.S. since the 1986 cases without a reported case of transmission.
"We believe there's already a very small risk of transmission through the safeguards we have in place," Joel Newman told reporters.
Once the infections were discovered, stored blood from the donor was re-tested using ELISA and also came back negative for both viruses.
Blood banks use a more sensitive test for HIV -- Nucleic Acid Amplification Testing, or NAAT -- which detects the viral genetic material directly, but that test is not routinely used in transplantation.
When the donor's blood was tested using NAAT, the HIV infection was detected.
A screening questionnaire showed that the donor had engaged in high-risk behavior, according to officials at Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donation, which tested and approved the organs for donation.
The nature of the high-risk behavior was not disclosed.
CDC guidelines advise not using organs and tissue from such high-risk patients unless the risk to the recipient of not getting the transplant is thought to be greater than the risk of HIV transmission and disease.
Many medical details -- including what organs were transplanted and how the donor died -- were not released because of privacy concerns. Officials at the University of Chicago Medical Center were quoted as saying only that the donor died "three days after traumatic injury."
Given that the donor was high-risk, all four of the recipients should have been tested for HIV within three months of the transplant, but that apparently was not done.
Matthew Kuehnert, M.D., director of blood, organ, and tissue safety with the CDC, said he was concerned that none of the hospitals appeared to have followed CDC guidelines for testing patients after a transplant.
It may be a sign, he said, that transplant centers don't take the risk of viral transmission as seriously as they should.
The more sensitive nucleic acid test might have prevented these infections, but that test also has a window in which it is too soon to detect infection -- about 12 days for HIV and 25 days for hepatitis C.
Also, the current test may be too time consuming to be used routinely in transplant cases.
Unlike blood, which is usually stored for one or two days while undergoing tests, organs typically can be stored for only a few hours, according to James Burdick, M.D., of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the national organ donation system.
But, Dr. Burdick added, "The chances of acquiring HIV from a donor are vanishingly small, and this one case doesn't prove differently."
Grant to fund organ donation campaign
November 15, 2007
Campus News - NOVEMBER 12th, 2007
Grant to fund organ donation campaign
SIMONE BATTISTE-ALLEYNE - Staff Write
Thomas Feeley, associate professor of communication, has been awarded a $427,000 grant to design a public relations campaign to promote organ donation on New York City college campuses.
Several schools including Hostos Community College, Fashion Institute of Technology, and City College of New York will participate in the campaign during the first year of the study, according to Feeley. The campuses will be used to promote blood, tissue and solid organ donations through a Public Relations course using positively framed messages with a narrative hook.
The incentive for the project is the wide disparity he has noticed between minority and non-minority donation, which has increased over the past five years, Feeley said.
According to Feeley, the Caucasian population currently becomes organ donors at a rate of 70 to 75 percent whereas other ethnic groups sign onto the registry at a rate of approximately 30 to 40 percent.
Feeley explained that overall, only a portion of people agrees to donate their organs when asked. Out of 100 people asked to donate their organs for a loved one, approximately 60 people will, Feeley said.
"All the (medical) advances made to allow for the transplantation of organs has created this wonderful procedure where we save lives, but we now have a shortage of organs," Feeley said.
The onset of diabetes is one of the primary reasons for the increased need for organ donation among minorities, according to Feeley. Diabetes is linked to kidney failure that leads to a need for kidney transplantation.
According to Feeley, it is important to get minorities involved in organ donation because they are more predisposed to chronic diseases than the Caucasian population.
"More minorities need to donate because of organ and tissue matching issues," he said.
New York City was selected to be the prime location for the study because of the high percentage of African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics that makes up most of the large population.
Feeley explained that minority groups are far below the national average for organ donation because of the high number of them who are uninsured, and the characteristically low economic status of the population.
For the campaign, Feeley is targeting college students for several reasons.
He believes that students are easy to reach with mass media messages since they are all centrally located on a campus and in classrooms.
Also, with the large number of first-generation people in college, they are more likely to become influential leaders in their community and advocates for the message, he said.
College students are also prime donation candidates because their organs are healthier. However, the tendency of college-aged people to engage in risky behavior such as binge drinking and extreme sports increases their chances of dying from trauma, according to Feeley. This makes them potential candidates to be organ donors because traumatic injury is the number one reason for organ donation.
"Most donors are young because they have healthier organs, (but) they are risk takers and die from traumatic events," he said.
Feeley conducted research on the effectiveness of persuasive, narrative and positively framed messages from 2003 to 2006 at UB and the University at Albany. This study was the foundation for the new campaign among minorities.
"We found that positively framed messages were most effective," Feeley said.
Feeley's principle co-investigator, Julie Rivera, brought a valuable skill set to the project, he said. Rivera has existing contacts in the New York City area, which proved useful when approaching schools for inclusion in the project. Rivera is an expert in the field of organ donation.
"She works at the New York Organ Donation Network. Their (donation) area is the entire New York metropolitan area," Feeley said.
Feeley hopes this campaign will benefit the cause of organ donation by increasing the number of minorities who participate in the registry.
"The solution in small part is in the hands of social scientists to change the attitudes and behaviors of those who are able to donate."
Campus News - NOVEMBER 12th, 2007
Grant to fund organ donation campaign
SIMONE BATTISTE-ALLEYNE - Staff Write
Thomas Feeley, associate professor of communication, has been awarded a $427,000 grant to design a public relations campaign to promote organ donation on New York City college campuses.
Several schools including Hostos Community College, Fashion Institute of Technology, and City College of New York will participate in the campaign during the first year of the study, according to Feeley. The campuses will be used to promote blood, tissue and solid organ donations through a Public Relations course using positively framed messages with a narrative hook.
The incentive for the project is the wide disparity he has noticed between minority and non-minority donation, which has increased over the past five years, Feeley said.
According to Feeley, the Caucasian population currently becomes organ donors at a rate of 70 to 75 percent whereas other ethnic groups sign onto the registry at a rate of approximately 30 to 40 percent.
Feeley explained that overall, only a portion of people agrees to donate their organs when asked. Out of 100 people asked to donate their organs for a loved one, approximately 60 people will, Feeley said.
"All the (medical) advances made to allow for the transplantation of organs has created this wonderful procedure where we save lives, but we now have a shortage of organs," Feeley said.
The onset of diabetes is one of the primary reasons for the increased need for organ donation among minorities, according to Feeley. Diabetes is linked to kidney failure that leads to a need for kidney transplantation.
According to Feeley, it is important to get minorities involved in organ donation because they are more predisposed to chronic diseases than the Caucasian population.
"More minorities need to donate because of organ and tissue matching issues," he said.
New York City was selected to be the prime location for the study because of the high percentage of African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics that makes up most of the large population.
Feeley explained that minority groups are far below the national average for organ donation because of the high number of them who are uninsured, and the characteristically low economic status of the population.
For the campaign, Feeley is targeting college students for several reasons.
He believes that students are easy to reach with mass media messages since they are all centrally located on a campus and in classrooms.
Also, with the large number of first-generation people in college, they are more likely to become influential leaders in their community and advocates for the message, he said.
College students are also prime donation candidates because their organs are healthier. However, the tendency of college-aged people to engage in risky behavior such as binge drinking and extreme sports increases their chances of dying from trauma, according to Feeley. This makes them potential candidates to be organ donors because traumatic injury is the number one reason for organ donation.
"Most donors are young because they have healthier organs, (but) they are risk takers and die from traumatic events," he said.
Feeley conducted research on the effectiveness of persuasive, narrative and positively framed messages from 2003 to 2006 at UB and the University at Albany. This study was the foundation for the new campaign among minorities.
"We found that positively framed messages were most effective," Feeley said.
Feeley's principle co-investigator, Julie Rivera, brought a valuable skill set to the project, he said. Rivera has existing contacts in the New York City area, which proved useful when approaching schools for inclusion in the project. Rivera is an expert in the field of organ donation.
"She works at the New York Organ Donation Network. Their (donation) area is the entire New York metropolitan area," Feeley said.
Feeley hopes this campaign will benefit the cause of organ donation by increasing the number of minorities who participate in the registry.
"The solution in small part is in the hands of social scientists to change the attitudes and behaviors of those who are able to donate."
Pioneer students emphasize importance of organ donations
Pioneer students emphasize importance of organ donations
Lou Whitmire
News Journal
SHELBY — Seniors in the Medical Technologies Health Academy at Pioneer Career & Technology Center presented their senior project — titled Organ Donation Awareness — at today’s monthly senior citizen luncheon.
Approximately 60 guests enjoyed a turkey dinner while Helen Johnson of Ontario High School talked candidly about the importance of organ donation.
“Looking back at that very day at the hospital, I thought, ‘I’m one of the lucky ones,’ ” said Johnson, reading a quote from a mother who lost her 19-year-old daughter in an automobile accident. “I left the hospital knowing that my daughter’s life was going to go on.”
“Other people who lose a child leave with their grief and nothing else,” Johnson said, explaining that the woman’s daughter was an organ donor.
As she and Pioneer classmates distributed information from Lifeline of Ohio, and how to join the Ohio Donor registry, Johnson shared facts about organ donations.
Johnson, 17, who plans to become a nurse, said her friend’s father is waiting for a liver transplant.
“My father also needs a liver transplant,” she said.
Seniors students, including Rebecca Bowman, whose home school is Crestview High School, handed out Lifesaver candies to the audience at the end of each presentation as a reminder that “you could save a life.”
Nick and Kathy Kreinbrink of Shelby came to enjoy the luncheon and program, bringing with them Nick’s mother, Edna Kreinbrink, who is 92.
“We’re enjoying it,” said Nick, after students in the criminal justice program presented the U.S. flag prior to the luncheon.
Entertainment was provided by Nick Pounds and Shelly Petty.
Pounds, who is enrolled in the medical technologies program at Pioneer and plans to become a radiologist, played guitar while Petty sang. A senior at Northmor High School, Petty traveled to Shelby for the program.
Pounds plans to enter the U.S. Army and become a medic. He also would like to pursue his musical talents.
“But becoming a musician doesn’t pay the rent,” he said.
Many students helped make the monthly luncheon a success. Culinary arts students prepared and served the meal, and criminal justice students assisted guests with parking. Cosmetology and horticulture students also lent a hand at the event.
The crowd was so large they spilled over from the restaurant into a classroom.
For more information about organ donations, go to www.lifelineofohio.org on the Internet.
Lou Whitmire
News Journal
SHELBY — Seniors in the Medical Technologies Health Academy at Pioneer Career & Technology Center presented their senior project — titled Organ Donation Awareness — at today’s monthly senior citizen luncheon.
Approximately 60 guests enjoyed a turkey dinner while Helen Johnson of Ontario High School talked candidly about the importance of organ donation.
“Looking back at that very day at the hospital, I thought, ‘I’m one of the lucky ones,’ ” said Johnson, reading a quote from a mother who lost her 19-year-old daughter in an automobile accident. “I left the hospital knowing that my daughter’s life was going to go on.”
“Other people who lose a child leave with their grief and nothing else,” Johnson said, explaining that the woman’s daughter was an organ donor.
As she and Pioneer classmates distributed information from Lifeline of Ohio, and how to join the Ohio Donor registry, Johnson shared facts about organ donations.
Johnson, 17, who plans to become a nurse, said her friend’s father is waiting for a liver transplant.
“My father also needs a liver transplant,” she said.
Seniors students, including Rebecca Bowman, whose home school is Crestview High School, handed out Lifesaver candies to the audience at the end of each presentation as a reminder that “you could save a life.”
Nick and Kathy Kreinbrink of Shelby came to enjoy the luncheon and program, bringing with them Nick’s mother, Edna Kreinbrink, who is 92.
“We’re enjoying it,” said Nick, after students in the criminal justice program presented the U.S. flag prior to the luncheon.
Entertainment was provided by Nick Pounds and Shelly Petty.
Pounds, who is enrolled in the medical technologies program at Pioneer and plans to become a radiologist, played guitar while Petty sang. A senior at Northmor High School, Petty traveled to Shelby for the program.
Pounds plans to enter the U.S. Army and become a medic. He also would like to pursue his musical talents.
“But becoming a musician doesn’t pay the rent,” he said.
Many students helped make the monthly luncheon a success. Culinary arts students prepared and served the meal, and criminal justice students assisted guests with parking. Cosmetology and horticulture students also lent a hand at the event.
The crowd was so large they spilled over from the restaurant into a classroom.
For more information about organ donations, go to www.lifelineofohio.org on the Internet.
Medical definition of death tested by organ donations
Medical definition of death tested by organ donations
By Tasha Kates
tkates@dailyprogress.com | 978-7267
Thursday, November 15, 2007
In May 1968, Bruce Tucker entered the Medical College of Virginia Hospital with a serious head injury from a fall. Within one day of his arrival, his heart was removed from his body.
Dr. Richard Lower, a surgeon at the hospital, had a potential recipient in need of Tucker’s heart. The injured man was one of the first organ donors, and had been declared dead before the hospital had determined he met the criteria to be determined dead.
Dr. Susan E. Lederer and Dr. Timothy L. Pruett presented Tucker’s case as part of a historical perspective of death and organ transplantation Wednesday during the University of Virginia’s Medical Center Hour, a free weekly lecture produced by the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities. Lederer is an associate professor of the history of medicine, history and African-American studies at Yale University. Pruett is the Strickler Family Professor of Transplantation at UVa and this year’s president of the United Network of Organ Sharing.
Issues surrounding death and organ donation continue today. Last year, Kaiser Permanente surgeon Dr. Hootan Roozrokh was brought up on charges of ordering drugs to hasten a patient’s death so he could become an organ donor.
Pruett said that incident in San Francisco gives patients a bad impression about organ donation.
“We’re trying to skirt the balance of trust and mistrust,” he said.
As organ transplants began to become more common in the 1960s, doctors realized there were many ethical issues surrounding death. Lederer said that led to the creation of the Harvard criteria for brain death, developed in 1968. Harvard
defines brain death as a non-functioning brain, but Lederer said that hasn’t made determining death easier.
“There continues to be ambiguity about at what moment someone is dead,” Lederer said.
Pruett said each state has different criteria for when a person is dead, although most follow Harvard’s rules. In Tucker’s case, Lederer said doctors didn’t run a required second neurological test before declaring him dead. His family wasn’t aware he was hurt until almost a day after the accident.
“In order to be available to surgeons, he was pronounced ‘unclaimed dead,’” Lederer said. “Waiting 24 hours would have made the organs less useful.”
The United Network of Organ Sharing is still looking for a solution to the nation’s shortage of organs for sick patients. Pruett said it would take more than altruism, but paying for organs might not be the solution either.
“I’m reviewing a paper from Pakistan looking at organs from vendors and altruism,” Pruett said. “The vendors all do worse.”
By Tasha Kates
tkates@dailyprogress.com | 978-7267
Thursday, November 15, 2007
In May 1968, Bruce Tucker entered the Medical College of Virginia Hospital with a serious head injury from a fall. Within one day of his arrival, his heart was removed from his body.
Dr. Richard Lower, a surgeon at the hospital, had a potential recipient in need of Tucker’s heart. The injured man was one of the first organ donors, and had been declared dead before the hospital had determined he met the criteria to be determined dead.
Dr. Susan E. Lederer and Dr. Timothy L. Pruett presented Tucker’s case as part of a historical perspective of death and organ transplantation Wednesday during the University of Virginia’s Medical Center Hour, a free weekly lecture produced by the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Humanities. Lederer is an associate professor of the history of medicine, history and African-American studies at Yale University. Pruett is the Strickler Family Professor of Transplantation at UVa and this year’s president of the United Network of Organ Sharing.
Issues surrounding death and organ donation continue today. Last year, Kaiser Permanente surgeon Dr. Hootan Roozrokh was brought up on charges of ordering drugs to hasten a patient’s death so he could become an organ donor.
Pruett said that incident in San Francisco gives patients a bad impression about organ donation.
“We’re trying to skirt the balance of trust and mistrust,” he said.
As organ transplants began to become more common in the 1960s, doctors realized there were many ethical issues surrounding death. Lederer said that led to the creation of the Harvard criteria for brain death, developed in 1968. Harvard
defines brain death as a non-functioning brain, but Lederer said that hasn’t made determining death easier.
“There continues to be ambiguity about at what moment someone is dead,” Lederer said.
Pruett said each state has different criteria for when a person is dead, although most follow Harvard’s rules. In Tucker’s case, Lederer said doctors didn’t run a required second neurological test before declaring him dead. His family wasn’t aware he was hurt until almost a day after the accident.
“In order to be available to surgeons, he was pronounced ‘unclaimed dead,’” Lederer said. “Waiting 24 hours would have made the organs less useful.”
The United Network of Organ Sharing is still looking for a solution to the nation’s shortage of organs for sick patients. Pruett said it would take more than altruism, but paying for organs might not be the solution either.
“I’m reviewing a paper from Pakistan looking at organs from vendors and altruism,” Pruett said. “The vendors all do worse.”
Federal and local officials are investigating
By Jeremy Manier | Tribune staff reporter
November 14, 2007
Federal and local officials are investigating whether four Chicago patients who contracted HIV from organ transplants could have passed on the disease during the months when they were unaware of their infections, health officials said Tuesday.
The four patients contracted HIV and hepatitis C from an infected donor in January and did not know of the potential risk to their partners and close contacts until they tested positive for the diseases in the last two weeks. The infected donor had not tested positive for the diseases, likely because the infections were too recent to register on screening tests, officials believe.
The risk to others could have been reduced had the hospitals tested the organ recipients soon after their transplants, said Dr. Matthew Kuehnert, director of blood, organ and tissue safety with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kuehnert said he was concerned that none of the affected hospitals -- Rush University Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center -- appeared to have followed CDC guidelines for testing at-risk patients after a transplant.
November 14, 2007
Federal and local officials are investigating whether four Chicago patients who contracted HIV from organ transplants could have passed on the disease during the months when they were unaware of their infections, health officials said Tuesday.
The four patients contracted HIV and hepatitis C from an infected donor in January and did not know of the potential risk to their partners and close contacts until they tested positive for the diseases in the last two weeks. The infected donor had not tested positive for the diseases, likely because the infections were too recent to register on screening tests, officials believe.
The risk to others could have been reduced had the hospitals tested the organ recipients soon after their transplants, said Dr. Matthew Kuehnert, director of blood, organ and tissue safety with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kuehnert said he was concerned that none of the affected hospitals -- Rush University Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center -- appeared to have followed CDC guidelines for testing at-risk patients after a transplant.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The nightmare scenario of organ donation
Issue Date: November 16, 2007
The nightmare scenario of organ donation
While the claim that organ donation almost always involves killing a living person may strike most Catholic ethicists and physicians as exaggerated, few dispute the potential for abuse. The recent case of Ruben Navarro offers a chilling nightmare scenario.
Navarro died in February 2006, just six days shy of his 26th birthday, in a hospital in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Suffering from a degenerative genetic disease, Navarro lapsed into a coma and eventually lost his pulse. His mother decided it was time to let her son go, and told doctors to discontinue his ventilator. Informed that he was a candidate to be an organ donor, she consented to a procedure known as “donation after cardiac death,” in which Ruben would be wheeled into an operating room, removed from his ventilator and allowed to die, at which point a team of transplant surgeons would swiftly remove his organs.
(“Donation after cardiac death” differs from transplants involving brain death, because donors still have some brain activity. Life support is removed and death is verified by cessation of breathing and circulation. It’s critical that this happen in a matter of minutes because otherwise the organs deteriorate.)
In theory, Navarro’s care was supposed to remain the paramount concern of the medical team until he was actually dead, with transplant surgeons stepping in only after death had occurred. In reality, a Kaiser Permanente specialist who had flown in to perform the procedure repeatedly directed nurses to administer massive doses of sedatives. Within 40 minutes, Navarro’s levels of morphine and another painkiller soared to 20 times above normal dosages. The sedation served no medical end, prosecutors would eventually conclude, other than to hasten Navarro’s death so his organs would remain viable.
The physician’s apparent callousness shocked even his colleagues: “Let’s just give him more candy,” is how one nurse recalled his words. The physician, Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, was eventually charged with three felony counts, including “dependent adult abuse” and “unlawful prescribing of a controlled substance,” the first time a surgeon has faced criminal action in a transplant case. On Oct. 29, he pleaded “not guilty” and is awaiting trial.
In the end, Navarro still didn’t die quickly enough, so the procedure was scrubbed and he was taken to a patient room, reportedly frothing at the mouth and squirming. He died the following morning.
Though experts say what happened to Navarro is an aberration, the sense of urgency to expand the organ supply is undeniably widespread. In the United States, there were 29,000 solid organ transplants in 2006, according to figures from the American Medical Association, while as of June 2007, 97,000 people languished on the waiting list. Solid organ transplant involves kidney, liver, pancreas, heart, lung, cornea, bone marrow and bone and soft tissue. Estimates are that 17 Americans die every day awaiting a transplant. A February 2007 report from the President’s Council on Bioethics predicts that given rapid aging of the population, a projected surge in diabetes, and other factors, the gap between the supply of organs and the demand will continue to grow.
Catholic ethicists say the Navarro case offers a “wake-up call” about protecting patients against these pressures.
“Many of us have reviewed our policies and procedures because of it,” said Jesuit Fr. Peter Clark, director of the Institute of Bioethics at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. For example, Clark said, there’s a need for a uniform standard of how long one has to wait with a “donation after cardiac death” case to pronounce the donor dead; current practice varies from 75 seconds to 10 minutes.
The June 2007 issue of Health Care Ethics USA, published by the Catholic Health Association, was devoted to discussion of donation after cardiac death, also called “non-heart beating donation.” Two authors recommended caution on matters such as ensuring that donors are truly dead, and avoiding procedures such as administering anticoagulant drugs to ensure a steady flow of blood that could harm the patient. James Dubois of the Center for Health Care Ethics at St. Louis University, on the other hand, argued that with appropriate safeguards, donation after cardiac death is “consistent with the principles of medical ethics.”
-- John L. Allen Jr.
The nightmare scenario of organ donation
While the claim that organ donation almost always involves killing a living person may strike most Catholic ethicists and physicians as exaggerated, few dispute the potential for abuse. The recent case of Ruben Navarro offers a chilling nightmare scenario.
Navarro died in February 2006, just six days shy of his 26th birthday, in a hospital in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Suffering from a degenerative genetic disease, Navarro lapsed into a coma and eventually lost his pulse. His mother decided it was time to let her son go, and told doctors to discontinue his ventilator. Informed that he was a candidate to be an organ donor, she consented to a procedure known as “donation after cardiac death,” in which Ruben would be wheeled into an operating room, removed from his ventilator and allowed to die, at which point a team of transplant surgeons would swiftly remove his organs.
(“Donation after cardiac death” differs from transplants involving brain death, because donors still have some brain activity. Life support is removed and death is verified by cessation of breathing and circulation. It’s critical that this happen in a matter of minutes because otherwise the organs deteriorate.)
In theory, Navarro’s care was supposed to remain the paramount concern of the medical team until he was actually dead, with transplant surgeons stepping in only after death had occurred. In reality, a Kaiser Permanente specialist who had flown in to perform the procedure repeatedly directed nurses to administer massive doses of sedatives. Within 40 minutes, Navarro’s levels of morphine and another painkiller soared to 20 times above normal dosages. The sedation served no medical end, prosecutors would eventually conclude, other than to hasten Navarro’s death so his organs would remain viable.
The physician’s apparent callousness shocked even his colleagues: “Let’s just give him more candy,” is how one nurse recalled his words. The physician, Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, was eventually charged with three felony counts, including “dependent adult abuse” and “unlawful prescribing of a controlled substance,” the first time a surgeon has faced criminal action in a transplant case. On Oct. 29, he pleaded “not guilty” and is awaiting trial.
In the end, Navarro still didn’t die quickly enough, so the procedure was scrubbed and he was taken to a patient room, reportedly frothing at the mouth and squirming. He died the following morning.
Though experts say what happened to Navarro is an aberration, the sense of urgency to expand the organ supply is undeniably widespread. In the United States, there were 29,000 solid organ transplants in 2006, according to figures from the American Medical Association, while as of June 2007, 97,000 people languished on the waiting list. Solid organ transplant involves kidney, liver, pancreas, heart, lung, cornea, bone marrow and bone and soft tissue. Estimates are that 17 Americans die every day awaiting a transplant. A February 2007 report from the President’s Council on Bioethics predicts that given rapid aging of the population, a projected surge in diabetes, and other factors, the gap between the supply of organs and the demand will continue to grow.
Catholic ethicists say the Navarro case offers a “wake-up call” about protecting patients against these pressures.
“Many of us have reviewed our policies and procedures because of it,” said Jesuit Fr. Peter Clark, director of the Institute of Bioethics at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. For example, Clark said, there’s a need for a uniform standard of how long one has to wait with a “donation after cardiac death” case to pronounce the donor dead; current practice varies from 75 seconds to 10 minutes.
The June 2007 issue of Health Care Ethics USA, published by the Catholic Health Association, was devoted to discussion of donation after cardiac death, also called “non-heart beating donation.” Two authors recommended caution on matters such as ensuring that donors are truly dead, and avoiding procedures such as administering anticoagulant drugs to ensure a steady flow of blood that could harm the patient. James Dubois of the Center for Health Care Ethics at St. Louis University, on the other hand, argued that with appropriate safeguards, donation after cardiac death is “consistent with the principles of medical ethics.”
-- John L. Allen Jr.
Donor box on driver's license first step to ensuring transplant
November 13, 2007 04:23 pm
Donor box on driver's license first step to ensuring transplant
By GARRON MARSH
gmarsh@tahlequahdailypress.com
TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS —
For many Americans awaiting organ and tissue transplants, a donor's generosity can mean the difference between life and death.
For those people, a transplant won't just add quantity to their lives, but quality as well -- a new life and years of feeling better.
According to OrganDonor.gov and US Government Information on Organ and Tissue Donation and Transportation, more than 98,00 Americans are on the organ transplant waiting listm in line for hearts, lungs, kidneys, livers, intestines, pancreases and bone marrow.
Likewise, a statement by the Mayo Clinic showed that in 2006, nearly 6,000 people -- or 16 a day -- died while waiting for an organ transplant.
To help people like these, a number of hospitals, physicians and other advocacy groups have instituted National Green Ribbon Awareness Week. The idea is to encourage people to learn more about organ and tissue donation and the difference it can make in many lives.
Tahlequah resident Amber Hammons knows first-hand about the difficulties of losing a family member to terminal illness.
For Hammons, the choice is clear.
"Actually, my mother died of cancer, so anything I can do to help with research or to help people, I want to do," Hammons said. "I don't even care if I'm buried; I'd rather just go to science.
Lauri Atkinson, also of Tahlequah, experienced a similar situation when her husband was involved in a serious auto accident. Though she'd always checked the organ donor box on her driver's license, she renewed her commitment after his wreck.
"My husband was in a very serious car accident almost two years ago. I'd always been [an organ donor] before then; I just re-upped," said Atkinson. "I want to be able to help someone else live."
Atkinson said even though her husband was fortunate enough to not need a transplant, the experience left her with an even greater appreciation for donors.
"He almost died, and if he needed an organ I would have liked for someone to have given one -- and I would like to do the same thing," Atkinson said. "I just support the idea of helping someone else live."
Like Atkinson, many people check the donor box on. But many experts say this may not guarantee their wish to become a donor.
Before removing any organs, hospitals will seek the consent of next of kin, so the best way to make sure an organ donor's wish is carried out is to make sure family members and relatives are aware. Visit www.journey.transweb.org for e-mail templates and printable cards to help out.
Similarly, placing one's name on a state or national donor registry can be helpful, but registries are not always checked and may not be legally binding.
For a person with no next of kin, or if there is doubt the family will agree to the donation, an attorney can help assign durable power of attorney to someone who will carry out a wish to donate.
Donor box on driver's license first step to ensuring transplant
By GARRON MARSH
gmarsh@tahlequahdailypress.com
TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS —
For many Americans awaiting organ and tissue transplants, a donor's generosity can mean the difference between life and death.
For those people, a transplant won't just add quantity to their lives, but quality as well -- a new life and years of feeling better.
According to OrganDonor.gov and US Government Information on Organ and Tissue Donation and Transportation, more than 98,00 Americans are on the organ transplant waiting listm in line for hearts, lungs, kidneys, livers, intestines, pancreases and bone marrow.
Likewise, a statement by the Mayo Clinic showed that in 2006, nearly 6,000 people -- or 16 a day -- died while waiting for an organ transplant.
To help people like these, a number of hospitals, physicians and other advocacy groups have instituted National Green Ribbon Awareness Week. The idea is to encourage people to learn more about organ and tissue donation and the difference it can make in many lives.
Tahlequah resident Amber Hammons knows first-hand about the difficulties of losing a family member to terminal illness.
For Hammons, the choice is clear.
"Actually, my mother died of cancer, so anything I can do to help with research or to help people, I want to do," Hammons said. "I don't even care if I'm buried; I'd rather just go to science.
Lauri Atkinson, also of Tahlequah, experienced a similar situation when her husband was involved in a serious auto accident. Though she'd always checked the organ donor box on her driver's license, she renewed her commitment after his wreck.
"My husband was in a very serious car accident almost two years ago. I'd always been [an organ donor] before then; I just re-upped," said Atkinson. "I want to be able to help someone else live."
Atkinson said even though her husband was fortunate enough to not need a transplant, the experience left her with an even greater appreciation for donors.
"He almost died, and if he needed an organ I would have liked for someone to have given one -- and I would like to do the same thing," Atkinson said. "I just support the idea of helping someone else live."
Like Atkinson, many people check the donor box on. But many experts say this may not guarantee their wish to become a donor.
Before removing any organs, hospitals will seek the consent of next of kin, so the best way to make sure an organ donor's wish is carried out is to make sure family members and relatives are aware. Visit www.journey.transweb.org for e-mail templates and printable cards to help out.
Similarly, placing one's name on a state or national donor registry can be helpful, but registries are not always checked and may not be legally binding.
For a person with no next of kin, or if there is doubt the family will agree to the donation, an attorney can help assign durable power of attorney to someone who will carry out a wish to donate.
Via Christi, Midwest Transplant network recognized for organ donationsWichita Business Journal - by Adam Knapp
Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 1:34 PM CST
Via Christi, Midwest Transplant network recognized for organ donationsWichita Business Journal - by Adam Knapp
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded a Medal of Honor for Organ Donation to Via Christi Regional Medical Center and the Midwest Transplant Network.
It is the third year in a row Via Christi has received the medal, which is earned for sustaining a donation conversion rate of 75 percent or more of eligible donors, and for identifying eight or more potential organ donors during a 12-month period between April 2005 and June 2007.
"This award recognizes the deep and shared commitment of Via Christi staff and Midwest Transplant Network to make available more life-saving transplants in our region," Saad Ehtisham, senior vice president of Clinical Operations and chief nursing officer for Via Christi Wichita Health Network, said, in a release.
Via Christi has identified 27 organ donors this year, says MTN organ procurement coordinator Jessica Stefek, with a donation conversion rate of 77 percent
Via Christi, Midwest Transplant network recognized for organ donationsWichita Business Journal - by Adam Knapp
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded a Medal of Honor for Organ Donation to Via Christi Regional Medical Center and the Midwest Transplant Network.
It is the third year in a row Via Christi has received the medal, which is earned for sustaining a donation conversion rate of 75 percent or more of eligible donors, and for identifying eight or more potential organ donors during a 12-month period between April 2005 and June 2007.
"This award recognizes the deep and shared commitment of Via Christi staff and Midwest Transplant Network to make available more life-saving transplants in our region," Saad Ehtisham, senior vice president of Clinical Operations and chief nursing officer for Via Christi Wichita Health Network, said, in a release.
Via Christi has identified 27 organ donors this year, says MTN organ procurement coordinator Jessica Stefek, with a donation conversion rate of 77 percent
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
4 area hospitals lauded for locating those who give a life-saving gift.
4 area hospitals lauded for locating those who give a life-saving gift.
By Dorsey Griffith - dgriffith@sacbee.com
Last Updated 12:08 am PST Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B4
Teri McIntyre, pictured with her husband, Allan, in 2005, made the decision to donate his organs after he was fatally injured in a golf cart accident in Camino.
Patients awaiting organ transplants and the doctors who perform them have long been vexed with how to close the gap between potential donors and the nationwide need for organs.
That is beginning to change, and four Sacramento-area hospitals are being recognized for their role in making it happen.
UC Davis Medical Center, Sutter Roseville Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Sacramento Medical Center and Mercy San Juan Medical Center all have been recognized by the federal government for meeting federal goals for organ donation rates.
"The hospitals are absolutely instrumental in setting the circumstances so that the best possible outcomes for donation are there," explained Sean Davies, a family care coordinator with Golden State Donor Services, which links suitable donors in the Sacramento region with patients awaiting transplants. "The hospitals are successful because they really go out of their way to make sure the families of patients really have their needs met."
In the aftermath of the golf cart incident two years ago that left Teri McIntyre a widow and her 6-year-old son without a dad, solace came with the donation of her husband Allan's healthy heart and kidneys.
"That's my biggest strength; it's how I get through things" said McIntyre, of Cameron Park. "He lives on."
That process, of extracting hope and even joy from tragedy, is much more complicated than it might seem.
Nearly 100,000 people nationwide are waiting for an organ transplant, but only about half of the nation's potential donors – those who suffer brain death and are suitable organ donors – actually become donors, either because their families refuse or because of poor coordination between hospital staff and local organ procurement organizations.
The four Sacramento-area hospitals were among 392 facilities nationwide that have upped their rates to 75 percent or more of eligible donors. The rates are based on the percentage of potential donors who actually become donors. The only area hospital eligible for the award that didn't get it was Sutter Medical Center Sacramento, which just missed the goal, at 70 percent.
The hospital logging the greatest rate gain was UC Davis, where it jumped from 39 percent in 2005 to 79 percent last year.
Although federal regulations require hospitals to contact organ procurement organizations when they have a potential donor, sometimes the opportunities have been missed, said Tracy Bryan, Golden State's public relations manager.
The four hospitals were part of a national program called the Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative, which identified the best ways to integrate organ donation into hospital care, and offered training for nurses, doctors and others who care for dying patients.
At Kaiser Permanente, for example, referrals to Golden State are now made earlier than before, and intensive care nurses have the authority to fully support families facing the brain death of a loved one, and to help them understand their options, said Carolyn Ward, ICU charge nurse at Kaiser's Morse Avenue hospital.
Getting Golden State's family care coordinator involved early on has been key at Sutter Roseville, said trauma surgeon Andrew DeMar.
"We are very good at keeping the body chemistry and blood pressure in balance in anticipation for organ recovery, but the hard part is knowing how to approach the family," he said. "Obviously, people aren't at their best when they are grappling with the loss of a loved one."
Golden State's coordinators have extensive training in knowing how to discuss organ donation with families.
McIntyre said that Davies, of Golden State, appeared soon after her husband was taken by air ambulance from Apple Mountain Golf Resort in Camino to Sutter Roseville, where it quickly became clear that the 38-year-old would not survive his head injury.
Although her husband was not a registered organ donor, she said he had told her he wanted to be a donor, inspired by the story of a local woman who had received a donated heart.
"My head was spinning," she remembered of the meetings at the hospital. "(Golden State) had asked me how I felt. They were there for me the whole time. They never left our side. Never."
By Dorsey Griffith - dgriffith@sacbee.com
Last Updated 12:08 am PST Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B4
Teri McIntyre, pictured with her husband, Allan, in 2005, made the decision to donate his organs after he was fatally injured in a golf cart accident in Camino.
Patients awaiting organ transplants and the doctors who perform them have long been vexed with how to close the gap between potential donors and the nationwide need for organs.
That is beginning to change, and four Sacramento-area hospitals are being recognized for their role in making it happen.
UC Davis Medical Center, Sutter Roseville Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Sacramento Medical Center and Mercy San Juan Medical Center all have been recognized by the federal government for meeting federal goals for organ donation rates.
"The hospitals are absolutely instrumental in setting the circumstances so that the best possible outcomes for donation are there," explained Sean Davies, a family care coordinator with Golden State Donor Services, which links suitable donors in the Sacramento region with patients awaiting transplants. "The hospitals are successful because they really go out of their way to make sure the families of patients really have their needs met."
In the aftermath of the golf cart incident two years ago that left Teri McIntyre a widow and her 6-year-old son without a dad, solace came with the donation of her husband Allan's healthy heart and kidneys.
"That's my biggest strength; it's how I get through things" said McIntyre, of Cameron Park. "He lives on."
That process, of extracting hope and even joy from tragedy, is much more complicated than it might seem.
Nearly 100,000 people nationwide are waiting for an organ transplant, but only about half of the nation's potential donors – those who suffer brain death and are suitable organ donors – actually become donors, either because their families refuse or because of poor coordination between hospital staff and local organ procurement organizations.
The four Sacramento-area hospitals were among 392 facilities nationwide that have upped their rates to 75 percent or more of eligible donors. The rates are based on the percentage of potential donors who actually become donors. The only area hospital eligible for the award that didn't get it was Sutter Medical Center Sacramento, which just missed the goal, at 70 percent.
The hospital logging the greatest rate gain was UC Davis, where it jumped from 39 percent in 2005 to 79 percent last year.
Although federal regulations require hospitals to contact organ procurement organizations when they have a potential donor, sometimes the opportunities have been missed, said Tracy Bryan, Golden State's public relations manager.
The four hospitals were part of a national program called the Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative, which identified the best ways to integrate organ donation into hospital care, and offered training for nurses, doctors and others who care for dying patients.
At Kaiser Permanente, for example, referrals to Golden State are now made earlier than before, and intensive care nurses have the authority to fully support families facing the brain death of a loved one, and to help them understand their options, said Carolyn Ward, ICU charge nurse at Kaiser's Morse Avenue hospital.
Getting Golden State's family care coordinator involved early on has been key at Sutter Roseville, said trauma surgeon Andrew DeMar.
"We are very good at keeping the body chemistry and blood pressure in balance in anticipation for organ recovery, but the hard part is knowing how to approach the family," he said. "Obviously, people aren't at their best when they are grappling with the loss of a loved one."
Golden State's coordinators have extensive training in knowing how to discuss organ donation with families.
McIntyre said that Davies, of Golden State, appeared soon after her husband was taken by air ambulance from Apple Mountain Golf Resort in Camino to Sutter Roseville, where it quickly became clear that the 38-year-old would not survive his head injury.
Although her husband was not a registered organ donor, she said he had told her he wanted to be a donor, inspired by the story of a local woman who had received a donated heart.
"My head was spinning," she remembered of the meetings at the hospital. "(Golden State) had asked me how I felt. They were there for me the whole time. They never left our side. Never."
Grant to fund organ donation campaign
Campus News - NOVEMBER 12th, 2007
Grant to fund organ donation campaign
SIMONE BATTISTE-ALLEYNE - Staff Write
Thomas Feeley, associate professor of communication, has been awarded a $427,000 grant to design a public relations campaign to promote organ donation on New York City college campuses.
Several schools including Hostos Community College, Fashion Institute of Technology, and City College of New York will participate in the campaign during the first year of the study, according to Feeley. The campuses will be used to promote blood, tissue and solid organ donations through a Public Relations course using positively framed messages with a narrative hook.
The incentive for the project is the wide disparity he has noticed between minority and non-minority donation, which has increased over the past five years, Feeley said.
According to Feeley, the Caucasian population currently becomes organ donors at a rate of 70 to 75 percent whereas other ethnic groups sign onto the registry at a rate of approximately 30 to 40 percent.
Feeley explained that overall, only a portion of people agrees to donate their organs when asked. Out of 100 people asked to donate their organs for a loved one, approximately 60 people will, Feeley said.
"All the (medical) advances made to allow for the transplantation of organs has created this wonderful procedure where we save lives, but we now have a shortage of organs," Feeley said.
The onset of diabetes is one of the primary reasons for the increased need for organ donation among minorities, according to Feeley. Diabetes is linked to kidney failure that leads to a need for kidney transplantation.
According to Feeley, it is important to get minorities involved in organ donation because they are more predisposed to chronic diseases than the Caucasian population.
"More minorities need to donate because of organ and tissue matching issues," he said.
New York City was selected to be the prime location for the study because of the high percentage of African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics that makes up most of the large population.
Feeley explained that minority groups are far below the national average for organ donation because of the high number of them who are uninsured, and the characteristically low economic status of the population.
For the campaign, Feeley is targeting college students for several reasons.
He believes that students are easy to reach with mass media messages since they are all centrally located on a campus and in classrooms.
Also, with the large number of first-generation people in college, they are more likely to become influential leaders in their community and advocates for the message, he said.
College students are also prime donation candidates because their organs are healthier. However, the tendency of college-aged people to engage in risky behavior such as binge drinking and extreme sports increases their chances of dying from trauma, according to Feeley. This makes them potential candidates to be organ donors because traumatic injury is the number one reason for organ donation.
"Most donors are young because they have healthier organs, (but) they are risk takers and die from traumatic events," he said.
Feeley conducted research on the effectiveness of persuasive, narrative and positively framed messages from 2003 to 2006 at UB and the University at Albany. This study was the foundation for the new campaign among minorities.
"We found that positively framed messages were most effective," Feeley said.
Feeley's principle co-investigator, Julie Rivera, brought a valuable skill set to the project, he said. Rivera has existing contacts in the New York City area, which proved useful when approaching schools for inclusion in the project. Rivera is an expert in the field of organ donation.
"She works at the New York Organ Donation Network. Their (donation) area is the entire New York metropolitan area," Feeley said.
Feeley hopes this campaign will benefit the cause of organ donation by increasing the number of minorities who participate in the registry.
"The solution in small part is in the hands of social scientists to change the attitudes and behaviors of those who are able to donate."
Grant to fund organ donation campaign
SIMONE BATTISTE-ALLEYNE - Staff Write
Thomas Feeley, associate professor of communication, has been awarded a $427,000 grant to design a public relations campaign to promote organ donation on New York City college campuses.
Several schools including Hostos Community College, Fashion Institute of Technology, and City College of New York will participate in the campaign during the first year of the study, according to Feeley. The campuses will be used to promote blood, tissue and solid organ donations through a Public Relations course using positively framed messages with a narrative hook.
The incentive for the project is the wide disparity he has noticed between minority and non-minority donation, which has increased over the past five years, Feeley said.
According to Feeley, the Caucasian population currently becomes organ donors at a rate of 70 to 75 percent whereas other ethnic groups sign onto the registry at a rate of approximately 30 to 40 percent.
Feeley explained that overall, only a portion of people agrees to donate their organs when asked. Out of 100 people asked to donate their organs for a loved one, approximately 60 people will, Feeley said.
"All the (medical) advances made to allow for the transplantation of organs has created this wonderful procedure where we save lives, but we now have a shortage of organs," Feeley said.
The onset of diabetes is one of the primary reasons for the increased need for organ donation among minorities, according to Feeley. Diabetes is linked to kidney failure that leads to a need for kidney transplantation.
According to Feeley, it is important to get minorities involved in organ donation because they are more predisposed to chronic diseases than the Caucasian population.
"More minorities need to donate because of organ and tissue matching issues," he said.
New York City was selected to be the prime location for the study because of the high percentage of African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics that makes up most of the large population.
Feeley explained that minority groups are far below the national average for organ donation because of the high number of them who are uninsured, and the characteristically low economic status of the population.
For the campaign, Feeley is targeting college students for several reasons.
He believes that students are easy to reach with mass media messages since they are all centrally located on a campus and in classrooms.
Also, with the large number of first-generation people in college, they are more likely to become influential leaders in their community and advocates for the message, he said.
College students are also prime donation candidates because their organs are healthier. However, the tendency of college-aged people to engage in risky behavior such as binge drinking and extreme sports increases their chances of dying from trauma, according to Feeley. This makes them potential candidates to be organ donors because traumatic injury is the number one reason for organ donation.
"Most donors are young because they have healthier organs, (but) they are risk takers and die from traumatic events," he said.
Feeley conducted research on the effectiveness of persuasive, narrative and positively framed messages from 2003 to 2006 at UB and the University at Albany. This study was the foundation for the new campaign among minorities.
"We found that positively framed messages were most effective," Feeley said.
Feeley's principle co-investigator, Julie Rivera, brought a valuable skill set to the project, he said. Rivera has existing contacts in the New York City area, which proved useful when approaching schools for inclusion in the project. Rivera is an expert in the field of organ donation.
"She works at the New York Organ Donation Network. Their (donation) area is the entire New York metropolitan area," Feeley said.
Feeley hopes this campaign will benefit the cause of organ donation by increasing the number of minorities who participate in the registry.
"The solution in small part is in the hands of social scientists to change the attitudes and behaviors of those who are able to donate."
Donor's infection is 1st such case in U.S. in 22 years
4 transplant recipients get HIV from donor
Donor's infection is 1st such case in U.S. in 22 years
By Jeremy Manier | Tribune staff reporter
November 13, 2007
Four transplant recipients in Chicago contracted HIV from a high-risk organ donor whose infection went undetected in what hospital officials say is the first documented case of the virus being transmitted by organ donation in the U.S. in more than 20 years.
The transplants occurred in January at three Chicago hospitals, but the patients did not learn until the last two weeks that they were infected with HIV and the virus for hepatitis C. One doctor said the news was "devastating" to the patients.
Hospital and organ donation officials said the infections arose because of a rarely encountered flaw in the test used to detect those diseases -- a flaw that more sensitive tests could help fix, some experts believe. Official said there is no significant threat to other organ recipients, and no other patients received the infected donor's organs or tissue.
Donor's infection is 1st such case in U.S. in 22 years
By Jeremy Manier | Tribune staff reporter
November 13, 2007
Four transplant recipients in Chicago contracted HIV from a high-risk organ donor whose infection went undetected in what hospital officials say is the first documented case of the virus being transmitted by organ donation in the U.S. in more than 20 years.
The transplants occurred in January at three Chicago hospitals, but the patients did not learn until the last two weeks that they were infected with HIV and the virus for hepatitis C. One doctor said the news was "devastating" to the patients.
Hospital and organ donation officials said the infections arose because of a rarely encountered flaw in the test used to detect those diseases -- a flaw that more sensitive tests could help fix, some experts believe. Official said there is no significant threat to other organ recipients, and no other patients received the infected donor's organs or tissue.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Donors' rights must be guarded / Greater legal protection required to ensure organs given up willingly
Donors' rights must be guarded / Greater legal protection required to ensure organs given up willingly
Hiroshi Sakagami and Akemi Ari / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
In the 10 years since the Organ Transplant Law was enforced in October 1997, organ donations from the brain dead totaled a mere 62. But while organ transplants from the brain dead are carried out infrequently, transplants involving living donors have been increasing, giving rise to new problems.
Unlike organ transplants from people whose cerebral or cardiac functions have stopped, living donors risk impairing their mental capacity or bodily functions.
The Yomiuri Shimbun carried a series on organ transplantation from Oct. 12 to 20. After reporting on the case of a woman who became a living donor against her will, the paper was contacted by many readers, including many who said they had had similar experiences.
One reader, a 38-year-old woman from Tokyo, said a doctor at a hospital where her father was diagnosed with fulminant hepatitis failure said her father required a liver transplant from a living donor. The doctor then spoke with the woman's elder sister whose blood type matched her father's, intimating that it would be inhumane not to donate one's liver. The woman said that when her sister said she wanted to think about it, the doctor urged her to decide straightaway, saying, "Decide now, there should be an examination prior to donation."
Eventually, the woman's sister decided not to donate her liver, after taking into consideration her father's wish not to extend his life at the cost of damaging the health of his daughter.
As this example showed, medical practitioners tend to give priority to saving a patient's life and consider it natural to do so, thereby putting pressure on family members to donate an organ.
However, surgery constitutes an infliction of injury if it is not for medical treatment. Surgeons are exempted from responsibility for inflicting an injury only when the following three requirements are met:
-- The purpose is medical treatment.
-- The validity of the medical treatment is proved.
-- The patient's consent is obtained.
"It's necessary to more thoroughly examine the issue of transplants from living donors," said Kenichi Nakayama, professor emeritus of Kyoto University. "A scalpel must only be used on a healthy body in exceptional circumstances because we're not treating organ donors."
Receiving the donor's voluntary consent should be an indispensable condition for organ donation.
However, prior to July, the Organ Transplant Law did not include regulations to protect the rights of living donors. That month, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry incorporated rules on transplants from living donors in the application guideline of the law. The new rules state, "transplants will be conducted only as an exceptional measure when it is regarded as unavoidable" and "the donor's will should be confirmed by a third party capable of an appropriate judgment."
But the guidelines have no legal binding power. Therefore, there could still arise a case in which a family member agrees, though reluctantly, to donate an organ out of a desire to meet the expectations of others.
The Japan Society for Transplantation says psychiatrists and other experts currently confirm the will of each donor. But it is not easy to ascertain a person's real intention.
The problem of how to ensure medical treatment for donors after they donate organs also has not been addressed. According to a survey by the Japan Liver Transplantation Society, one in 30 donors develops a major complication that requires a further operation.
The issue of who should bear the cost of medical examinations and treatment if complications arise as well as the issue of compensation if a donor dies or is disabled has not been fully clarified. In many cases, donors themselves have paid such expenses. The Japan Society for Transplantation is considering introducing donor indemnity insurance, as has already been adopted for bone-marrow transplants.
A system should also be established to protect the human rights of donors, such as respecting the individual donor's will and guaranteeing medical treatment for them.
Economic effects caused by delays in providing medical treatment requiring organ transplants also should not be overlooked.
The number of patients undergoing artificial dialysis has been increasing by about 10,000 a year in recent years, hitting about 264,000 at the end of last year. Dialysis costs more than 5 million yen per head annually, at a total cost of more than 1.3 trillion yen a year, a sum that accounts for 4 percent of the nation's total medical expenses. This is a major drag on the government's medical spending.
Kidney transplants, on the other hand, cost 5.55 million yen for the initial year, including the operation fee, and 1 million yen to 1.8 million yen annually after that, including expenses for immunosuppressing agents.
Many patients are forced to quit their jobs to visit a hospital three days a week to receive several hours of dialysis. Prof. Satoshi Teraoka of Tokyo Women's Medical University said, "If more dialysis patients could return to work after undergoing a kidney transplant, it would prove advantageous economically."
In the case of heart transplantation, too, the number of donors is extremely small because the Organ Transplant Law requires the consent of the brain dead donor and their family. The waiting period for a transplant now averages two years.
In many cases patients waiting for a transplant need to be equipped with an external auxiliary artificial heart. The cost for this tops 80 million yen for the two-year waiting period.
If a patient receives a heart transplant, it costs 11.8 million yen in the initial year and about 3 million yen annually after that, including drug expenses.
Given these figures, organ transplantation offers a big advantage in terms of medical costs and patients' employment. But the Diet has put a hold on the debate of a bill to revise the Organ Transplant Law that would ease the conditions for organ donations from the brain dead. Discussion must be jump-started to ensure transplants are properly carried out.
(Nov. 13, 2007)
Hiroshi Sakagami and Akemi Ari / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
In the 10 years since the Organ Transplant Law was enforced in October 1997, organ donations from the brain dead totaled a mere 62. But while organ transplants from the brain dead are carried out infrequently, transplants involving living donors have been increasing, giving rise to new problems.
Unlike organ transplants from people whose cerebral or cardiac functions have stopped, living donors risk impairing their mental capacity or bodily functions.
The Yomiuri Shimbun carried a series on organ transplantation from Oct. 12 to 20. After reporting on the case of a woman who became a living donor against her will, the paper was contacted by many readers, including many who said they had had similar experiences.
One reader, a 38-year-old woman from Tokyo, said a doctor at a hospital where her father was diagnosed with fulminant hepatitis failure said her father required a liver transplant from a living donor. The doctor then spoke with the woman's elder sister whose blood type matched her father's, intimating that it would be inhumane not to donate one's liver. The woman said that when her sister said she wanted to think about it, the doctor urged her to decide straightaway, saying, "Decide now, there should be an examination prior to donation."
Eventually, the woman's sister decided not to donate her liver, after taking into consideration her father's wish not to extend his life at the cost of damaging the health of his daughter.
As this example showed, medical practitioners tend to give priority to saving a patient's life and consider it natural to do so, thereby putting pressure on family members to donate an organ.
However, surgery constitutes an infliction of injury if it is not for medical treatment. Surgeons are exempted from responsibility for inflicting an injury only when the following three requirements are met:
-- The purpose is medical treatment.
-- The validity of the medical treatment is proved.
-- The patient's consent is obtained.
"It's necessary to more thoroughly examine the issue of transplants from living donors," said Kenichi Nakayama, professor emeritus of Kyoto University. "A scalpel must only be used on a healthy body in exceptional circumstances because we're not treating organ donors."
Receiving the donor's voluntary consent should be an indispensable condition for organ donation.
However, prior to July, the Organ Transplant Law did not include regulations to protect the rights of living donors. That month, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry incorporated rules on transplants from living donors in the application guideline of the law. The new rules state, "transplants will be conducted only as an exceptional measure when it is regarded as unavoidable" and "the donor's will should be confirmed by a third party capable of an appropriate judgment."
But the guidelines have no legal binding power. Therefore, there could still arise a case in which a family member agrees, though reluctantly, to donate an organ out of a desire to meet the expectations of others.
The Japan Society for Transplantation says psychiatrists and other experts currently confirm the will of each donor. But it is not easy to ascertain a person's real intention.
The problem of how to ensure medical treatment for donors after they donate organs also has not been addressed. According to a survey by the Japan Liver Transplantation Society, one in 30 donors develops a major complication that requires a further operation.
The issue of who should bear the cost of medical examinations and treatment if complications arise as well as the issue of compensation if a donor dies or is disabled has not been fully clarified. In many cases, donors themselves have paid such expenses. The Japan Society for Transplantation is considering introducing donor indemnity insurance, as has already been adopted for bone-marrow transplants.
A system should also be established to protect the human rights of donors, such as respecting the individual donor's will and guaranteeing medical treatment for them.
Economic effects caused by delays in providing medical treatment requiring organ transplants also should not be overlooked.
The number of patients undergoing artificial dialysis has been increasing by about 10,000 a year in recent years, hitting about 264,000 at the end of last year. Dialysis costs more than 5 million yen per head annually, at a total cost of more than 1.3 trillion yen a year, a sum that accounts for 4 percent of the nation's total medical expenses. This is a major drag on the government's medical spending.
Kidney transplants, on the other hand, cost 5.55 million yen for the initial year, including the operation fee, and 1 million yen to 1.8 million yen annually after that, including expenses for immunosuppressing agents.
Many patients are forced to quit their jobs to visit a hospital three days a week to receive several hours of dialysis. Prof. Satoshi Teraoka of Tokyo Women's Medical University said, "If more dialysis patients could return to work after undergoing a kidney transplant, it would prove advantageous economically."
In the case of heart transplantation, too, the number of donors is extremely small because the Organ Transplant Law requires the consent of the brain dead donor and their family. The waiting period for a transplant now averages two years.
In many cases patients waiting for a transplant need to be equipped with an external auxiliary artificial heart. The cost for this tops 80 million yen for the two-year waiting period.
If a patient receives a heart transplant, it costs 11.8 million yen in the initial year and about 3 million yen annually after that, including drug expenses.
Given these figures, organ transplantation offers a big advantage in terms of medical costs and patients' employment. But the Diet has put a hold on the debate of a bill to revise the Organ Transplant Law that would ease the conditions for organ donations from the brain dead. Discussion must be jump-started to ensure transplants are properly carried out.
(Nov. 13, 2007)
Md. Has First Heart-Liver Transplant
Md. Has First Heart-Liver Transplant
Reporting
Alex DeMetrick BALTIMORE (WJZ) ― In a medical first for Maryland, a Prince George's county man has successfully undergone a double organ transplant-- a new heart and a new liver.
Alex DeMetrick reports the risky operation took place in Baltimore at the University Of Maryland Medical Center.
Something as simple as walking is a joy for 33-year-old Trevanoyn Shelton. A month ago, he didn't have the strength.
"I was pretty bad. I was feeling not so good. I couldn't get around a lot. Walking half a block, I couldn't do it. Now I feel wonderful," said Shelton.
Three weeks ago, surgeons at the University Of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore performed the first heart-liver transplant in the state.
It was Shelton's only chance at life when his failing heart left his liver damaged.
Transplants always require careful matching. That became doubly hard for a heart and liver.
After a wait of two months, donor organs came from an unidentified Marylander, and now for Shelton, life is looking up.
In the past 25 years, heart-liver transplants have only been performed 53 times in the United States.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved
Reporting
Alex DeMetrick BALTIMORE (WJZ) ― In a medical first for Maryland, a Prince George's county man has successfully undergone a double organ transplant-- a new heart and a new liver.
Alex DeMetrick reports the risky operation took place in Baltimore at the University Of Maryland Medical Center.
Something as simple as walking is a joy for 33-year-old Trevanoyn Shelton. A month ago, he didn't have the strength.
"I was pretty bad. I was feeling not so good. I couldn't get around a lot. Walking half a block, I couldn't do it. Now I feel wonderful," said Shelton.
Three weeks ago, surgeons at the University Of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore performed the first heart-liver transplant in the state.
It was Shelton's only chance at life when his failing heart left his liver damaged.
Transplants always require careful matching. That became doubly hard for a heart and liver.
After a wait of two months, donor organs came from an unidentified Marylander, and now for Shelton, life is looking up.
In the past 25 years, heart-liver transplants have only been performed 53 times in the United States.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved
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