"Everybody would like the system to be better,” said Renee Landers, a Suffolk University health law expert who, as part of an independent scientific advisory panel to the government, co-authored a blueprint for change earlier this year.
In the U.S., more than 400,000 people are living with functioning transplanted organs, UNOS said Friday. For all the lives saved each year, more than 105,000 people are on the national list still waiting for a new kidney, liver, heart or other organ, and about 17 a day die waiting. A Senate Finance Committee investigation turned up additional problems including testing failures that between 2008 and 2015 led to 249 transplant recipients developing diseases from donated organs, 70 of whom died. In other cases, organs being shipped from one hospital to another were lost in transit or delayed so long they weren’t usable.
--Kidney transplants increased 16% last year -- and by 23% among Black patients -- attributed to a UNOS-ordered change in how organs are distributed that allows kidneys to be shipped to sicker patients further away rather than being offered first to hospitals near where they were donated.
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