  
House passes organ transplant bill
Last Updated: 2001-03-08 12:40:01 EST (Reuters Health)
WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - In a marked contrast from the last time Congress considered the organ transplant issue, the House on Wednesday unanimously passed legislation to provide grants to "living organ donors" and to states to boost organ donation rates. The vote on the bill was 404 to 0.
The measure includes the non-controversial portions of a much broader bill that passed the House in 1999 but stalled in the Senate. That bill's primary goal was to overturn controversial regulations requiring broader geographic sharing of organs.
The fight between the Department of Health and Human Services, which wanted the regulations, and the contractor that runs the nation's organ distribution program, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which opposed the rules, was basically settled when a new contract between the two in 2000 incorporated most of the rules' requirements.
The leftover provisions of the bill approved by the House on Wednesday would authorize grants of $5 million per year to help pay transportation and living expenses for individuals donating a kidney, a piece of a liver, or any other organ to a low-income recipient.
Said Rep. Karen Thurman, D-Fla., "It is a very simple, direct kind of program that if one is willing to help and is willing to donate, that we are going to help in that regard."
The other provision of the bill would provide grants to states, starting with $15 million the first year to improve outreach activities and achieve better public awareness of the need for organ donation.
"Fourteen people die each day because the organ they need is not available to them," said Rep. Tom Barrett, D-Wisc., who helped negotiate the bill. "The gap between organ transplants and the number of patients waiting for organs more than doubled in the 1990s, according to a recent report from UNOS," Barrett said.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has introduced a similar bill in the Senate, which includes provisions to expand state registries of organ donors.
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