Incentives and organ donation

Dan Salomon, the president of the American Society of Transplantation, posted this last year on his presidential blog.
Encouraging organ donation: Removal of Disincentives and Consideration of Incentives

It said in part
"But a new possibility for the AST to creatively reconsider the current situation in the US was suggested by recent discussions with the ASTS regarding a joint response to the follow-up conference in April organized by the TTS and their partners in Doha, Qatar on the 5-year impact of the original Declaration of Istanbul. The Declaration outlined an international position on the ethics of paid organ donation intended to send a clear message that exploitive, paid living donation practices that were sometimes even criminal in nature, were not acceptable. The AST signed a letter supporting the Declaration. In the intervening 5 years, the Declaration had a significant impact on reducing and marginalizing these exploitive practices.

"However, even at the time, concerns were raised here that opposing those specific practices as documented then in developing countries was not equivalent to banning any future consideration of examining financial incentives for living organ donation in the United States. I now think the time has come for a joint AST/ASTS effort to review the current status of living organ donation in the US. I think this effort should consider the problem from the perspective of disincentives that can be removed and from incentives, including but not limited to financial ones that could be acceptable. The effort should harmonize with the ethical principles embodied in the Declaration of Istanbul, but should reflect the real situation of clinical practice and ethics in the US today. The effort should be inclusive of all the major stakeholders in transplantation, not just the AST and ASTS. It is way beyond me to advocate for any particular outcome at this point, but I will be actively exploring the principle of organizing the effort next. "

I'm in Chicago today at a workshop sponsored by the AST and the ASTS on this topic.