U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation
Recommendations 46

The Committee (ACOT) met on May 15-16, 2007, in Rockville, MD and agreed on the following recommendation:

Recommendation 46: The ACOT recommends to the Secretary that he direct the OPTN to develop and distribute within the transplant community, particularly to transplant programs and OPOs, a set of practice guidelines to be followed with respect to public solicitation of organ donors. The objective of these guidelines is to maintain the effectiveness and fairness of the existing organ allocation system and to protect the safety of the living donor.

Elements of the practice guidelines may include: safeguards against monetary exchange between recipients and donors; control of access to potential donor patient information within Intensive and Coronary Care Units and Emergency Departments; insuring that publicly solicited donors are properly informed about all potential consequences of a directed donation for themselves and for all patients waiting; protection against false and misleading statements by those soliciting organs; application of appropriate psychosocial evaluation of potential donors; education of the public about the importance of supporting the existing, fair allocation system; and, a strategy for offering potential donors an alternative when they are responding to a solicitation for a celebrity who is not first on the waiting list.