Cadaveric organ donation: encouraging the study of motivation.

Abstract

Approximately 6,000 patients per year, or 16 per day, with end-stage organ failure die because of the lack of available organs. Each year only 35% to 50% of potential donors consent to donation (1). During the last 20 years, vigorous educational campaigns, both voluntary and legislative, designed to increase organ donation have failed to increase donation rates significantly. The need for organs has grown nearly five times faster than the number of cadaveric donors: the annually compounded rate (1990–2000) of increase in number of patients on waiting lists has averaged 14.1% a year, whereas the rate of increase of donors has averaged 2.9% a year (2). The American Medical Association (AMA) has been concerned about this problem for many years and has developed several policies addressing it in the past decade (3). AMA policy has supported certain forms of financial incentives for cadaveric organ donation since 1993 (Policy E-2.15, AMA Policy Database), but they have never been implemented because federal law prohibits them. AMA policy specifically prohibits payment to living donors (4). Most initiatives to increase organ donation have focused on what motivates or hinders the decision to donate. Programs to improve organ donation rates have been aimed at public and professional groups. These have included widespread educational campaigns aimed at motivating individuals to become donors. They also have included mandated choice legislation, the establishment of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), donor card programs, donor registries, and the creation of specialized organ donation teams within hospitals that discuss organ donation with families and patients. Despite these efforts, cadaveric donation rates have remained nearly stable during the past decade. This report encourages the medical and scientific communities to reexamine the motivation for cadaveric organ donation. Building on the work of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) in 1993, which led to Opinion E-2.15, “Financial Incentives for Organ Donation,” this report identifies reasons why ethical objections to financial incentives, for cadaveric organ donation only, should be reexamined. In particular, this report considers the need to study the impact of financial incentives through limited research trials. Such studies would help measure the effect of incentives not only on donation rates but also on public perception of the transplant enterprise and of the meaning of organ donation. For the purposes of this report, donation and procurement of organs are considered completely independent from the allocation of organs. The report neither suggests nor supports any change in the current system of organ distribution, as developed and administered by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). Even if financial incentives were found to have a positive impact on cadaveric organ donation rates, allocation algorithms developed by the OPTN would continue to govern organ distribution and transplant recipients would continue to be selected according to ethically appropriate criteria related to medical need rather than ability to pay. Physicians have an obligation to hold their patients’ interests paramount and to support access for all patients to medical care (Principles VIII and IX) (5). To discharge these obligations, physicians should participate in efforts to increase organ donation, including education of their patients and the general public regarding the importance of organ donation and promotion of voluntary donation of organs. Beyond educational programs, however, physicians should support innovative approaches to encourage organ donation. Such efforts include encouragement and, if appropriate, participation in the conduct of ethically designed research studies of donor motivation. A potential impetus for cadaveric organ donation that has not been adequately explored (because of federal prohibition) is financial incentives. Such incentives are not intrinsically unethical; AMA policy has supported them since 1993. Whether a particular incentive is ethical or not depends upon the balance of benefits and harms that result, and these are currently unknown because they have never been investigated.