About TRIOMission StatementJune 4, 1998 Position of Transplant Recipients International Organization on state laws to prohibit interstate organ sharingThe State of Oklahoma has recently enacted legislation to restrict the distribution of life-saving transplant organs. Under the new law, any potential recipient that resides in Oklahoma will receive preferential consideration over possibly more needy patients that live outside the state. In addition, the new law mandates other states that receive transplant organs from Oklahoma to return an equivalent organ at a later date. The State of Louisiana has passed a similar law, and several other states have similar measures under consideration. Transplant Recipients International Organization, Inc., (TRIO) believes that patients are best served by laws that recognize that transplant organs are a precious life-saving resource that must be shared without respect to state boundaries. Most donor families have made the gift of life believing that the organs of their loved ones will benefit those patients with the greatest medical need--without consideration of race, age, religion or geographic region. The Oklahoma law --and others that place similar restrictions on the free movement of organs based on medical need--creates a potentially discriminatory situation in which local government regulation overrides the recommendations of medical professionals. The proliferation of such legal impediments will deny all Americans, particularly the residents of those states with restrictive legal barriers, the benefits of having a large pool of potential organ donors when the need for transplantation arises. Tens of thousands of Americans are alive today only because a liver, heart, kidney, lung, pancreas or other transplant organ was generously and expeditiously transported to the patient in greatest medical need. State laws that restrict the free distribution of transplant organs will potentially lead to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Americans, some of whom may die when a life-saving organ is available directly across the border in a neighboring state. The United States has a long history of unrestricted sharing of medical information, technology, facilities, equipment, medical expertise, blood products, and transplant organs among all states. State laws that artificially restrict the movement of transplant organs establish a dangerous precedent in eroding the documented benefits of national sharing in medicine. With thousands of Americans dying each year due to a shortage of organs nationally, this is not the time to exacerbate the problem with a proliferation of local rules blocking the efficient and equitable use of a national medical resource. TRIO urges all states that have implemented, or are considering adopting, laws regulating free organ movement to consider the negative impact of these restrictions on their own citizens and on all Americans and to make appropriate changes. Transplant Recipients International Organization, Inc., founded in 1983, is an independent, not-for-profit organization committed to improving the quality of life of transplant candidates, recipients, their families and the families of organ and tissue donors. TRIO works to increase awareness about the need to donate organs and tissue, support and educate transplant candidates, recipients, donors and their families, as well as to advocate on their behalf. |
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