Ads to Get a Liver Condemned by UNOS

Houston Chronicle and Richmond Times Dispatch report on the UNOS decision to recommend that transplant programs refuse to transplant organs where solicitation for those organs has been performed. The recommendation is just that, and there was no modification of official policy of UNOS, so hospitals are free to ignore UNOS on this matter. The Houston hospital where the pivotal case under discussion occurred has already planned to review its policies:

Todd Krampitz garnered national attention last summer when he advertised for a new liver on two Houston billboards and a Web site. Doctors had diagnosed the 32-year-old Houston man's severe liver cancer in May, and he was deemed too sick to be placed on donor lists. A week after going public, Krampitz received an organ from an out-of-state family who had heard of his plight. The operation was performed at The Methodist Hospital.

Sherril Lanthier, director of the Multiorgan Transplant Center at The Methodist Hospital, said the hospital will review the new recommendation announced late Friday. "We look at everything that comes from UNOS and we follow their guidelines," Lanthier said. "We will look at it ourselves and make a policy within the hospital." But she added: "We can't control what our patients do. We certainly don't advocate it."

After Krampitz's surgery, he and his wife, Julie, put up another billboard saying "Thank You," and encouraged more people to consider organ donation. After their successful appeal, others in need of organs used similar campaigns.

The nearly unanimous vote Thursday by UNOS officially condemned soliciting organ donations through advertising.