Nation’s organ transplant system is due for changes

Current system could use reform but not upheaval

The editorial “The organ transplant system needs fixing” (Aug. 13) misses an opportunity to explain to the public the complexities of the organ transplantation system and meaningful actions for improving the system. While federal legislation that would change the process for selecting a contractor to manage the transplant network is the impetus for the editorial, the Globe, a newspaper in a city with several transplant centers, is late in covering this story.

In February 2022, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a report, Realizing the Promise of Equity in the Organ Transplantation System, which comprehensively and rigorously documents components of the organ transplantation system that contribute to mistakes and inequities as well as the aspects of the system that work well. Ill-advised and poorly coordinated changes risk jeopardizing the highly functioning aspects of the current system and are likely to be ineffective.

The editorial trivializes the report with a brief mention of only one issue among many the report examines. Further, introducing for-profit organizations into a system, which relies on the altruism of donors and their families, who receive no compensation for these life-saving gifts, would be a move in the wrong direction and could engender public cynicism about the integrity of the system.

RENÉE M. LANDERS

Boston

The writer is a professor of law and faculty director of the health and biomedical law concentration at Suffolk University Law School and was a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study committee that prepared the 2022 report examining the transplant system.

New England nonprofit is focused on making the system work for the region

The editorial “The organ transplant system needs fixing” lacks important local context. New England Donor Services, the nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating organ and tissue donation 24 hours a day across the six-state region, has increased organ donation by 36 percent since 2020, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, and is on pace for a record number of organ donors and transplants this year. This is a testament to the generosity of the donating public as well as to the work of New England Donor Services’ front-line staff. New England Donor Services exceeds the median nationally on performance metrics for organ procurement organizations published by the federal government and is one of the largest such organizations in the country, working with the region’s 200 hospitals and 14 transplant programs.

Our organization dates to the founding more than 50 years ago of the InterHospital Organ Bank by Dr. Joseph Murray, a pioneer in organ transplantation who was awarded the 1990 Nobel Prize, and his legacy of innovation remains central. Most recently, New England Donor Services led the effort to establish the donor care unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center that you cited in the editorial, where deceased donors can be transferred for more control over the timing of cases, increases in transplantable organs from each donor, and better family support.

The New England system of donation and transplant is strong.

ALEXANDRA K. GLAZIER

President and CEO New England Donor Services Waltham