PRESUMED CONSENT: An Attractive Concept with Unattractive Results
Donate Life California
The waiting list for organ transplants has exceeded 117,000[i] and is growing roughly 10% a year, despite more than 28,000[ii] transplants being performed annually, and with the diseases of aging and obesity that damage organs, this trend is expected to worsen.[iii] While prevention and medical innovation can over the next half a century reduce or even end the need for organ transplant, they can do nothing to save the lives of those suffering from organ failure today; clearly we must make more organs available.
It is this clear-cut need that prompts well-meaning legislators, wait-listed potential transplant patients, and community-minded citizens to conclude that the our forty year old Opt-In, Explicit Consent (EC) organ donation system is broken and needs to be fixed by implementing Opt-Out Presumed Consent (PC). After all, if we could be compelled to donate organs upon our deaths, as a country we could meet our need for organ transplants; wouldn’t we?
A review of the accompanying chart indicates the wide disparity within European Presumed Consent countries donation rates, from a high of Spain’s 33.5 to a low of Greece’s 5.7, with a simple average of 12.5 nDPM, which is insignificantly different from the Explicit Consent average of 12.1 nDPM. This finding reconfirms a British Medical Journal article that studied inter-country European donation data and found that Presumed Consent and Explicit Consent donation rate variances were not statistically definitive[v]. This insignificant difference in DPM suggests that social, cultural, and operational factors, rather than legal structures are at play. For example, of the European countries with more than 70% Roman Catholic populations nDPM averages 16.3 while the countries with populations that are less than 70% Roman Catholic donation rates were only 9.1 nDPM; with a mix of PC and EC in each group of countries. Thus, it is very likely that religion plays a far more dominant and successful role in increasing organ donation in Europe than Presumed Consent.
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{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
The waiting list for organ transplants has exceeded 117,000[i] and is growing roughly 10% a year, despite more than 28,000[ii] transplants being performed annually, and with the diseases of aging and obesity that damage organs, this trend is expected to worsen.[iii] While prevention and medical innovation can over the next half a century reduce or even end the need for organ transplant, they can do nothing to save the lives of those suffering from organ failure today; clearly we must make more organs available.
It is this clear-cut need that prompts well-meaning legislators, wait-listed potential transplant patients, and community-minded citizens to conclude that the our forty year old Opt-In, Explicit Consent (EC) organ donation system is broken and needs to be fixed by implementing Opt-Out Presumed Consent (PC). After all, if we could be compelled to donate organs upon our deaths, as a country we could meet our need for organ transplants; wouldn’t we?
Well, the facts suggest otherwise: First, 72% of Californians and 75% of Americans who can become organ donors actually donate and save lives at the time of their deaths. Second, California’s actual donation rate of 32.3 nDPM (normalized Donors per Million population[iv]) leads the US ‘s 26.1 nDPM and every country in the world except for Spain’s 33.5 nDPM[1] Meanwhile all other countries trail donation in California and the US; whether they have Presumed Consent or Explicit Consent laws.
A review of the accompanying chart indicates the wide disparity within European Presumed Consent countries donation rates, from a high of Spain’s 33.5 to a low of Greece’s 5.7, with a simple average of 12.5 nDPM, which is insignificantly different from the Explicit Consent average of 12.1 nDPM. This finding reconfirms a British Medical Journal article that studied inter-country European donation data and found that Presumed Consent and Explicit Consent donation rate variances were not statistically definitive[v]. This insignificant difference in DPM suggests that social, cultural, and operational factors, rather than legal structures are at play. For example, of the European countries with more than 70% Roman Catholic populations nDPM averages 16.3 while the countries with populations that are less than 70% Roman Catholic donation rates were only 9.1 nDPM; with a mix of PC and EC in each group of countries. Thus, it is very likely that religion plays a far more dominant and successful role in increasing organ donation in Europe than Presumed Consent.
Read more
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
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