News From Transplant Week of May 20, 2001 / Vol. 2 No. 20

 

Thompson Challenges Transplant Professionals to Make Donation a Priority
 

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said the federal government and the transplant community have "done a lousy job" of building public support for organ donation, and challenged transplant professionals to join him in an all-out effort to motivate more Americans to be organ donors.

"There's no limit to what we can do to encourage donation, but we've done a lousy job," Thompson told 3,000 transplant professionals attrending Transplant 2001, the joint annual meeting of the American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons.

"I want to do a better job," he said. "It is not right in this great compassionate country of America that 76,000 Americans are waiting for organs."

While repeatedly hailing the work of transplant surgeons and physicians in developing transplantation into "one of the great medical success stories of the 20th Century," Thompson said members of the transplant community had to recognize that they had not adequately motivated and reassured potential donors.

"We need to find a way to confront the fears of more Americans over being an organ donor," Thompson said. "Those fears are as real as the need for a higher level of donation. We have to reassure Americans."

Thompson said that he personally "makes it a point to talk to a group about organ donation every single week." He told transplant doctors he knows they are busy, but urged them "to get on local TV programs, radio stations, and talk to editors" about transplantation and donation.

Thompson also said he intended to push Congress to enact legislation this year creating a "Goft of Life" Medal for organ donors, and said his dream was to create a Congressional display of support for transplantation even larger than the 300 Members who took part in the 1999 First Family Pledge Congress.

Thompson said "every Congressman has five families that are donors. We get them with a recipient or two and a transplant surgeon on the steps of the Capitol. It would be the biggest thing to motivate America."

Other Sources: Transplant 2001