An informational alert prepared by Fifth Freedom

Information courtesy of the Institute for Justice, More Marrow Donors, and the Orange County Register

Lawsuit seeks to legalize paying for bone marrow

Simple legal change could save 1,000 lives a year, group claims

Every year, over 1,000 people die waiting for bone marrow transplants. A group of families coping with blood diseases, a California nonprofit organization, and an expert in transplantation believe they can help save these lives by changing the law to make it legal to pay donors for their bone marrow.

Currently, doctors, nurses, and hospitals are all paid for organ transplant surgeries, but federal law makes it illegal to compensate the individuals who donated the organs. The 1984 National Organ Transplant Act makes it illegal to offer financial incentives to donate internal organs, including bone marrow.

It is legal to donate blood, plasma, sperm, as the body automatically replaces them. The lawsuit would seek to add bone marrow to this list of “bodily fluids”, as it can also be replaced. This would allow people suffering from leukemia and other illnesses to compensate donors for donating their bone marrow, a painful procedure. According to the plaintiffs, this could save over 1,000 lives a year.

One of the plaintiffs in the case is More Marrow Donors, a California nonprofit that, if they win the case, would seek to save lives by offering donors scholarships, housing allowances, or gifts to charities chosen by the donors.

Another plaintiff, Dr. John Wagner, has stated that around 20 percent of his patients in need of bone marrow transplants die because they are unable to find donors.

For more information, read about the lawsuit at The Institute for Justice’s Web site: http://u.nu/67pt3 . You can learn about More Marrow Donors at http://moremarrowdonors.org . Finally, read an editorial on the case at the Orange County Register: http://u.nu/38pt3 . If clicking the links does not work, copy and paste the links into your browser’s address bar.

Doug Schmidt
Act Team Coordinator
The Fifth Freedom Network
4606-C E. State Blvd., Suite 102
Fort Wayne, IN 46815
act@fifthfreedom.org
www.fifthfreedom.org