Unlocking Life: Overcoming Misconceptions of Organ Donation

Organ donation is such a simple and selfless action one takes to save the lives of others. The pros of declaring oneself as a donor far outweigh the cons, for nearly 90% of Americans claim to support donation. Only 30%, however, know how to or actually become donors, according to Donate Life America; so, what steers people away? Many avoid declaring themselves as organ donors because there are many misconceptions to the process of organ donation.

Some believe that a hospital staff will avoid focusing on saving a person’s life if he or she has agreed to become an organ donor, including the possibility that doctors may sign the death certificate before an organ donor is truly dead.

Others fear that organ or tissue donors lose the option of having open-casket funerals. Many claim that the decision cannot be made until they are at least eighteen years old, or that organ recipients wouldn’t want organs from elderly or those with health conditions.

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Others believe that wealth or fame allow some people to receive organs before others who have been on the transplant waiting list longer (“Busting”). Although these situations are far from the truth, they prevent a large portion of people from declaring themselves as organ donors. As a result, there is an average of eighteen people dying every day while waiting for transplants that cannot take place due to organ donation shortage (“Understanding donation”).

Understanding and educating oneself and others about organ donation is the first step in saving the lives of thousands.

Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit medical care, research, and education organization governed by a thirty-three-member Board of Trustees in Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, has dealt with these concerns first-hand. In order to help those who are unsure about the decision, the staff provides truths that will make people feel comfortable about the life-changing action of becoming an organ donor.

Mayo Clinic ensures that any health professional’s main focus is to save the patient in front of them. In fact, a doctor who tends to patients in emergencies will most likely have nothing to do with organ allocation should death occur. Those who have agreed to organ donation undergo more and more strenuous tests to ensure their death, as well. The process of donation hardly obstructs open-casket funerals either, since clothes will cover any marks made from organ or tissue donation.

One’s parents or family members can provide the proper permission to donate a minor’s organs, if they are aware of wishes to donate. Truthfully, there is no ceiling on the age for organ donors, and only a handful of medical problems can exclude a person from donating. In addition, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the organization in charge of the National Organ Transplant Network, makes certain that all celebrity transplants enter an internal audit for appropriate organ receipt, just as people without wealth or fame do.

With the truth brought to light and the misconceptions denounced, those with apprehension should be at ease about entering a process that will provide a second chance at life for many (Mayo Clinic staff). In 1954, a kidney was successfully transplanted from one twin into another making for the first instance of organ donation. Within the last sixty years, scientists have developed remarkable transplantation methods, including the ability to accept not only whole, but portions of organs for transplantation it into another person.

The process of living donation allows living donors to offer loved ones a kidney, portion of the liver, pancreas, or intestine, or lobe of a lung as an alternative to the delay of being placed on the national transplant waiting list for an organ from a deceased donor. Today, there are at least six thousand living organ donors each year (“About”). In order to achieve a successful transplantation, living donors have very strict requirements they must meet, such as enduring vigorous testing to determine blood type compatibility in order to prevent the recipient’s body from rejecting new organs (“Understanding donation”).

According to the United States, Department of Health & Human Services, one in four cases of living organ donation involve donors that are biologically unrelated to the recipient, and a much less percentage involves anonymous “stranger-to-stranger” donation with pure selfless motives. Generally, parents, children, and siblings offer living donations to other family members. The second and most common process of organ donation is non-living, in which a person makes the decision to donate his or her organs when death occurs.

Cadaverous, or deceased, donors can provide kidneys, pancreas, liver, lungs, heart, and intestinal organs. Until the time organs are recovered from donors, a flow of blood and oxygen through the organs must be maintained in order for the organs to grow and develop in the recipient. In order for this to take place, death must occur from an “irreparable neurological injury,” such circumstances include massive brain trauma from automobile accidents, strokes, or aneurysms. If all efforts to save a person in such situations fail, extensive testing to determine brain death (i. e.

the absence of brain or brain stem activity) takes place, and donation becomes a possibility for the individual. The patient’s consent to donate is checked at the state donor registry, and if the individual is not on the registry list, his or her family or representative is offered the choice to execute donation. However the decision is established, donation professionals collect medical and social history of the patient and determine which organs to be transplanted and which on the national transplant waiting list receive the allocated organs (“Understanding donation”).

The process as far as the donor is involved is literally effortless, making the decision to be a non-living organ donor one of the easiest, yet most selfless decisions one can make. In addition to donation of organs, individuals have the option of donating tissues, such as skin, bone, and heart valves when deceased. One tissue donor can enhance and even save the lives of at least fifty people. This type of donation must begin within twenty-four hours of death, but unlike organs, tissue can be processed and stored for a much longer time period.

Donated tissue is used in burn cases, ligament repair, and bone replacement of patients. The cornea is the clear dome-like window covering of the front of the eye that enables sight when by granting light to pass through to the retina, and donation of the cornea is implemented to preserve and restore sight. Cornea donation takes place within twelve hours of death and is transplantable for up to fourteen days after donated to an eye bank (“Understanding donation”). Organ donation provides hope and the chance at renewed lives for thousands.

For many, an organ transplant is a solid and secure option to saving his or her life. When kidney failure, cirrhosis of the liver, heart disease, or lung disease occurs and all other treatment routes have been addressed, transplantation is a feasible choice to cure such conditions. Although most patients must continue treatment for the remainder of their lives to ensure that the body’s immune system accepts the donated organ, transplantation is a relatively routine procedure where recipients are able to return home within a week (Harris).

Each of the available donation routes provide hope to thousands by renewing lives and are officially regulated by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). The OPTN collectively constitutes the nationwide organ distribution system and is operated by the non-profit organization UNOS, which works under contract of the U. S. Department of Health & Human Services (Harris). UNOS established the organ sharing system to efficiently regulate allocation and matching of organs, while collecting, storing, analyzing, and publishing information regarding donors and potential recipients to promote further donation.

Transplantation teams use the national computer system that links all donors and transplant candidates to match suitable patients to specific organ donors based on factors including tissue match, blood type, amount of time on the waiting list, immune status, distance between potential recipient and donor, and the degree of medical urgency (“About”). Financial status, gender, religion, and ethnicity do not factor into criteria for the matching system (“Donor”). UNOS also implemented and continues to enforce the “first come, first serve” policy with no regard to social status or race for matching of organs to those in need (“Donation”).

Although distributing organs on this basis maximizes the fairness and equality in organ transplantation, some such as Samia Madwar believe that this system could more efficient if it involved the use of stricter donor-recipient matching for kidneys. If a child was in need of a kidney transplant, for instance, then his or her body would be in greater need of a kidney from a younger donor than an adult that was first on the transplant waiting list. Younger recipients should receive younger kidneys to enhance the post-transplant life expectancy for recipients and maximize the success rates of transplantations.

This proposal for change will be presented to the UNOS board of directors in 2012 (Madwar 639). Exciting advancements are taking place, for the process of organ transplantation is an ever-changing procedure with new breakthroughs emerging daily. Since the first successful organ transplant, doctors have dramatically improved processes and recovery rates, making the procedure a routine treatment option for thousands of patients each year. Despite the growing advances in technology and medicine, the demand for organs and tissue to transplant far surpasses the supply from donation.

The incredible growth in transplantation is only advantageous with an availability of organs. Although the scientific aspect of organ transplants are no longer a limitation, social obstacles of organ donation result in the death of more than five thousand potential transplant recipients every year in the United States alone (Harris). Currently, there are 112,922 waiting list candidates in need of a transplant, while another name is added every ten minutes (“Donation”). That’s an average of 114 people added to the organ transplant waiting list every day (Harris).

Only 72,951 of these waiting list candidates are considered active waiting list candidates, meaning that they are eligible to be considered for organ transplantation as soon as an organ is donated (“Donation”). In order to promote organ donation at the source and generate awareness, Zonal Co-Ordination Committee in Karnataka for Transplants (ZCCK) recently held the first of hopefully many training sessions for organ transplant coordinators in Bangalore, Karnataka India.

This five-day program was held to train sixty participants from and around Bangalore how to actively promote organ donation and counsel families of potential donors in hospitals in the area. Organized for medical and non-medical professionals, the training curriculum sought to equip anyone from doctors to social workers with the skills to identify potential organ donors, while promoting organ transplantation to families through counseling. Although some transplant coordinators are already involved in some hospitals, ZCCK hopes this extensive training will provide every hospital with at least one well-trained and capable coordinator.

As a part of the primary goal of promotion, the Gift Your Organ Foundation administers similar programs with the intent to spread such training ideas to other countries (“Transplant co-ordinators”). Daniel Goldstein and Eric J. Johnson conducted research on the use and effect of defaults in the process of organ donation in order to raise awareness that vast advancements in organ transplantations could be made with a small change in public policy.

Goldstein and Johnson recognize the immense need for organs to transplant and reveal that the grey area “between approval and action” gives some fault to the death of thousands waiting on the donor list. According to their research, Goldstein and Johnson have found that a “no-action default,” or a choice that is made in the process of organ donation for those who make no decision to or not to donate their organs, truly makes a large difference in numbers of organ procurements.

Their experiment included an “opt-in condition,” in which participants were told that the default was not to be an organ donor, where they had a choice to change or confirm that. There was also an “opt-out condition,” where participants had a default to be a donor, with the option to change or confirm that. Goldstein and Johnson reveal that organ donation rates were nearly two times as high when “opting-out” as those “opting-in. ” The authors’ data proved that the current practice in the United States (which is similar to the opt-in condition) provides significantly lower consent rates for organ donation.

“People simply find too little value in organ donation,” and they only feel the need to change to alternatives when defaults are not consistent with their preferences (Goldstein 1338). Their conclusions, in support with other research, provide evidence that a change in the default to donate organs in the United States could provide thousands of additional organ donors per year. Until such policy changes are implemented, our only hope presently is to develop promotion and education. According to Tom Harris, many doctors and politicians suggest that legal and social change are the best options for promotion of organ donation.

Even though legal change can be timely, social change can spread like wildfire and be established by each and every one of us. We must place ourselves in the shoes of the mother whose child’s survival is based on whether a heart donation becomes available in time. We need the social change of added compassion that should be instilled in humanity, and although a change of heart may be a long shot away, we must set examples until then. As we strive for long awaited social change, we must first register ourselves. The process of becoming an organ donor is quick and effortless. One such option is through state donor registries.

Simply visit http://www. organdonor. gov/stateMap. asp, where the official donor registry for each state is available. A “Register As A Donor” link should be accessible from the homepage, where personal information will be taken and secured. By doing this, the name of a potential donor will be added to the donor list in the national system for organ donation. In addition, one can secure his or her wishes to donate by providing a signature on the back of the driver’s license. A witness’s signature or an organ donor indication sticker could also be applied to the license, depending on state policy.

Above all else, however, wishes to donate must be relayed to family. Family consent at the time of death takes precedence over other indications, no matter how legal the documents. A potential organ donor must ensure that his or her family is aware and intends to adhere to donation wishes at the time of death (Harris). While it may be uncomfortable to think of what will be done to one’s body when we have passed, making the simple decision to allow at least one’s organs to be donated can provide hope for those suffering and countless families.

One person who takes the essential steps toward becoming an organ donor can ultimately save up to eight lives (“Becoming”); those who decide to participate in other forms of donation can impact and even save many more lives. According to the U. S. Department of Health & Human Services, a total of 18,953 total transplants took place between January and August 2011 thanks to 9,049 total living and cadaverous donors. Imagine a world in which every possible person was generous enough to donate their viable and otherwise wasted organs to those in need. Give the gift of hope, and become an organ donor. Works Cited "About Organ Allocation.

" Transplant Living: Organ Donation and Transplantation Information for Patients. United Network for Organ Sharing, 04 Jun 2008. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . "Becoming a Donor. " organdonor. gov. U. S. Government Information on Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . "Busting the Myths about Organ Donation. " Gift of Life Donor Program. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . "Donation & Transplantation. " UNOS: Donate Life. United Network for Organ Sharing, 21 Sep 2011. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . "Donor Matching System. " OPTN: Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Health Resources and Services Administration, U.

S. Department of Health & Human Services. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . Goldstein, Daniel, and Eric J. Johnson. "Do defaults save lives? " Science 302. 5649 (2003): 1338+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 21 Sep. 2011. Harris, Tom. "How Organ Transplants Work. " HowStuffWorks. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . Madwar, Samia. "United States officials propose further retreat from first-come, first-served organ donation. " CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal 12 July 2011: E639+. Health Reference Center Academic. Web. 21 Sep. 2011. Mayo Clinic Staff. "Organ donation: Don't let these myths confuse you. " MayoClinic. com.

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 02 Aug 2011. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . "Transplant co-ordinators will give organ donation a fillip; 30 people will be stationed at city hospitals to identify potential organ donors and counsel their families. " DNA [Daily News & Analysis] 3 Sept. 2011. Health Reference Center Academic. Web. 21 Sep. 2011. "Understanding Donation. " Donate Life America. Mar 2011. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . Organ donation is such a simple and selfless action one takes to save the lives of others. The pros of declaring oneself as a donor far outweigh the cons, for nearly 90% of Americans claim to support donation.

Only 30%, however, know how to or actually become donors, according to Donate Life America; so, what steers people away? Many avoid declaring themselves as organ donors because there are many misconceptions to the process of organ donation. Some believe that a hospital staff will avoid focusing on saving a person’s life if he or she has agreed to become an organ donor, including the possibility that doctors may sign the death certificate before an organ donor is truly dead. Others fear that organ or tissue donors lose the option of having open-casket funerals.

Many claim that the decision cannot be made until they are at least eighteen years old, or that organ recipients wouldn’t want organs from elderly or those with health conditions. Others believe that wealth or fame allow some people to receive organs before others who have been on the transplant waiting list longer (“Busting”). Although these situations are far from the truth, they prevent a large portion of people from declaring themselves as organ donors. As a result, there is an average of eighteen people dying every day while waiting for transplants that cannot take place due to organ donation shortage (“Understanding donation”).

Understanding and educating oneself and others about organ donation is the first step in saving the lives of thousands. Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit medical care, research, and education organization governed by a thirty-three-member Board of Trustees in Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, has dealt with these concerns first-hand. In order to help those who are unsure about the decision, the staff provides truths that will make people feel comfortable about the life-changing action of becoming an organ donor.

Mayo Clinic ensures that any health professional’s main focus is to save the patient in front of them. In fact, a doctor who tends to patients in emergencies will most likely have nothing to do with organ allocation should death occur. Those who have agreed to organ donation undergo more and more strenuous tests to ensure their death, as well. The process of donation hardly obstructs open-casket funerals either, since clothes will cover any marks made from organ or tissue donation.

One’s parents or family members can provide the proper permission to donate a minor’s organs, if they are aware of wishes to donate. Truthfully, there is no ceiling on the age for organ donors, and only a handful of medical problems can exclude a person from donating. In addition, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the organization in charge of the National Organ Transplant Network, makes certain that all celebrity transplants enter an internal audit for appropriate organ receipt, just as people without wealth or fame do.

With the truth brought to light and the misconceptions denounced, those with apprehension should be at ease about entering a process that will provide a second chance at life for many (Mayo Clinic staff). In 1954, a kidney was successfully transplanted from one twin into another making for the first instance of organ donation. Within the last sixty years, scientists have developed remarkable transplantation methods, including the ability to accept not only whole, but portions of organs for transplantation it into another person.

The process of living donation allows living donors to offer loved ones a kidney, portion of the liver, pancreas, or intestine, or lobe of a lung as an alternative to the delay of being placed on the national transplant waiting list for an organ from a deceased donor. Today, there are at least six thousand living organ donors each year (“About”). In order to achieve a successful transplantation, living donors have very strict requirements they must meet, such as enduring vigorous testing to determine blood type compatibility in order to prevent the recipient’s body from rejecting new organs (“Understanding donation”).

According to the United States, Department of Health & Human Services, one in four cases of living organ donation involve donors that are biologically unrelated to the recipient, and a much less percentage involves anonymous “stranger-to-stranger” donation with pure selfless motives. Generally, parents, children, and siblings offer living donations to other family members. The second and most common process of organ donation is non-living, in which a person makes the decision to donate his or her organs when death occurs.

Cadaverous, or deceased, donors can provide kidneys, pancreas, liver, lungs, heart, and intestinal organs. Until the time organs are recovered from donors, a flow of blood and oxygen through the organs must be maintained in order for the organs to grow and develop in the recipient. In order for this to take place, death must occur from an “irreparable neurological injury,” such circumstances include massive brain trauma from automobile accidents, strokes, or aneurysms. If all efforts to save a person in such situations fail, extensive testing to determine brain death (i. e.

the absence of brain or brain stem activity) takes place, and donation becomes a possibility for the individual. The patient’s consent to donate is checked at the state donor registry, and if the individual is not on the registry list, his or her family or representative is offered the choice to execute donation. However the decision is established, donation professionals collect medical and social history of the patient and determine which organs to be transplanted and which on the national transplant waiting list receive the allocated organs (“Understanding donation”).

The process as far as the donor is involved is literally effortless, making the decision to be a non-living organ donor one of the easiest, yet most selfless decisions one can make. In addition to donation of organs, individuals have the option of donating tissues, such as skin, bone, and heart valves when deceased. One tissue donor can enhance and even save the lives of at least fifty people. This type of donation must begin within twenty-four hours of death, but unlike organs, tissue can be processed and stored for a much longer time period.

Donated tissue is used in burn cases, ligament repair, and bone replacement of patients. The cornea is the clear dome-like window covering of the front of the eye that enables sight when by granting light to pass through to the retina, and donation of the cornea is implemented to preserve and restore sight. Cornea donation takes place within twelve hours of death and is transplantable for up to fourteen days after donated to an eye bank (“Understanding donation”). Organ donation provides hope and the chance at renewed lives for thousands.

For many, an organ transplant is a solid and secure option to saving his or her life. When kidney failure, cirrhosis of the liver, heart disease, or lung disease occurs and all other treatment routes have been addressed, transplantation is a feasible choice to cure such conditions. Although most patients must continue treatment for the remainder of their lives to ensure that the body’s immune system accepts the donated organ, transplantation is a relatively routine procedure where recipients are able to return home within a week (Harris).

Each of the available donation routes provide hope to thousands by renewing lives and are officially regulated by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). The OPTN collectively constitutes the nationwide organ distribution system and is operated by the non-profit organization UNOS, which works under contract of the U. S. Department of Health & Human Services (Harris). UNOS established the organ sharing system to efficiently regulate allocation and matching of organs, while collecting, storing, analyzing, and publishing information regarding donors and potential recipients to promote further donation.

Transplantation teams use the national computer system that links all donors and transplant candidates to match suitable patients to specific organ donors based on factors including tissue match, blood type, amount of time on the waiting list, immune status, distance between potential recipient and donor, and the degree of medical urgency (“About”). Financial status, gender, religion, and ethnicity do not factor into criteria for the matching system (“Donor”). UNOS also implemented and continues to enforce the “first come, first serve” policy with no regard to social status or race for matching of organs to those in need (“Donation”).

Although distributing organs on this basis maximizes the fairness and equality in organ transplantation, some such as Samia Madwar believe that this system could more efficient if it involved the use of stricter donor-recipient matching for kidneys. If a child was in need of a kidney transplant, for instance, then his or her body would be in greater need of a kidney from a younger donor than an adult that was first on the transplant waiting list. Younger recipients should receive younger kidneys to enhance the post-transplant life expectancy for recipients and maximize the success rates of transplantations.

This proposal for change will be presented to the UNOS board of directors in 2012 (Madwar 639). Exciting advancements are taking place, for the process of organ transplantation is an ever-changing procedure with new breakthroughs emerging daily. Since the first successful organ transplant, doctors have dramatically improved processes and recovery rates, making the procedure a routine treatment option for thousands of patients each year. Despite the growing advances in technology and medicine, the demand for organs and tissue to transplant far surpasses the supply from donation.

The incredible growth in transplantation is only advantageous with an availability of organs. Although the scientific aspect of organ transplants are no longer a limitation, social obstacles of organ donation result in the death of more than five thousand potential transplant recipients every year in the United States alone (Harris). Currently, there are 112,922 waiting list candidates in need of a transplant, while another name is added every ten minutes (“Donation”). That’s an average of 114 people added to the organ transplant waiting list every day (Harris).

Only 72,951 of these waiting list candidates are considered active waiting list candidates, meaning that they are eligible to be considered for organ transplantation as soon as an organ is donated (“Donation”). In order to promote organ donation at the source and generate awareness, Zonal Co-Ordination Committee in Karnataka for Transplants (ZCCK) recently held the first of hopefully many training sessions for organ transplant coordinators in Bangalore, Karnataka India.

This five-day program was held to train sixty participants from and around Bangalore how to actively promote organ donation and counsel families of potential donors in hospitals in the area. Organized for medical and non-medical professionals, the training curriculum sought to equip anyone from doctors to social workers with the skills to identify potential organ donors, while promoting organ transplantation to families through counseling. Although some transplant coordinators are already involved in some hospitals, ZCCK hopes this extensive training will provide every hospital with at least one well-trained and capable coordinator.

As a part of the primary goal of promotion, the Gift Your Organ Foundation administers similar programs with the intent to spread such training ideas to other countries (“Transplant co-ordinators”). Daniel Goldstein and Eric J. Johnson conducted research on the use and effect of defaults in the process of organ donation in order to raise awareness that vast advancements in organ transplantations could be made with a small change in public policy.

Goldstein and Johnson recognize the immense need for organs to transplant and reveal that the grey area “between approval and action” gives some fault to the death of thousands waiting on the donor list. According to their research, Goldstein and Johnson have found that a “no-action default,” or a choice that is made in the process of organ donation for those who make no decision to or not to donate their organs, truly makes a large difference in numbers of organ procurements.

Their experiment included an “opt-in condition,” in which participants were told that the default was not to be an organ donor, where they had a choice to change or confirm that. There was also an “opt-out condition,” where participants had a default to be a donor, with the option to change or confirm that. Goldstein and Johnson reveal that organ donation rates were nearly two times as high when “opting-out” as those “opting-in. ” The authors’ data proved that the current practice in the United States (which is similar to the opt-in condition) provides significantly lower consent rates for organ donation.

“People simply find too little value in organ donation,” and they only feel the need to change to alternatives when defaults are not consistent with their preferences (Goldstein 1338). Their conclusions, in support with other research, provide evidence that a change in the default to donate organs in the United States could provide thousands of additional organ donors per year. Until such policy changes are implemented, our only hope presently is to develop promotion and education. According to Tom Harris, many doctors and politicians suggest that legal and social change are the best options for promotion of organ donation.

Even though legal change can be timely, social change can spread like wildfire and be established by each and every one of us. We must place ourselves in the shoes of the mother whose child’s survival is based on whether a heart donation becomes available in time. We need the social change of added compassion that should be instilled in humanity, and although a change of heart may be a long shot away, we must set examples until then. As we strive for long awaited social change, we must first register ourselves. The process of becoming an organ donor is quick and effortless. One such option is through state donor registries.

Simply visit http://www. organdonor. gov/stateMap. asp, where the official donor registry for each state is available. A “Register As A Donor” link should be accessible from the homepage, where personal information will be taken and secured. By doing this, the name of a potential donor will be added to the donor list in the national system for organ donation. In addition, one can secure his or her wishes to donate by providing a signature on the back of the driver’s license. A witness’s signature or an organ donor indication sticker could also be applied to the license, depending on state policy.

Above all else, however, wishes to donate must be relayed to family. Family consent at the time of death takes precedence over other indications, no matter how legal the documents. A potential organ donor must ensure that his or her family is aware and intends to adhere to donation wishes at the time of death (Harris). While it may be uncomfortable to think of what will be done to one’s body when we have passed, making the simple decision to allow at least one’s organs to be donated can provide hope for those suffering and countless families.

One person who takes the essential steps toward becoming an organ donor can ultimately save up to eight lives (“Becoming”); those who decide to participate in other forms of donation can impact and even save many more lives. According to the U. S. Department of Health & Human Services, a total of 18,953 total transplants took place between January and August 2011 thanks to 9,049 total living and cadaverous donors. Imagine a world in which every possible person was generous enough to donate their viable and otherwise wasted organs to those in need.

Give the gift of hope, and become an organ donor.

Works Cited

"About Organ Allocation. " Transplant Living: Organ Donation and Transplantation Information for Patients. United Network for Organ Sharing, 04 Jun 2008. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . "Becoming a Donor. " organdonor. gov. U. S. Government Information on Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . "Busting the Myths about Organ Donation. " Gift of Life Donor Program. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . "Donation & Transplantation. " UNOS: Donate Life. United Network for Organ Sharing, 21 Sep 2011. Web. 21 Sep 2011.

. "Donor Matching System. " OPTN: Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Health Resources and Services Administration, U. S. Department of Health & Human Services. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . Goldstein, Daniel, and Eric J. Johnson. "Do defaults save lives? " Science 302. 5649 (2003): 1338+. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 21 Sep. 2011. Harris, Tom. "How Organ Transplants Work. " HowStuffWorks. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . Madwar, Samia. "United States officials propose further retreat from first-come, first-served organ donation. " CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal 12 July 2011: E639+.

Health Reference Center Academic. Web. 21 Sep. 2011. Mayo Clinic Staff. "Organ donation: Don't let these myths confuse you. " MayoClinic. com. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 02 Aug 2011. Web. 21 Sep 2011. . "Transplant co-ordinators will give organ donation a fillip; 30 people will be stationed at city hospitals to identify potential organ donors and counsel their families. " DNA [Daily News & Analysis] 3 Sept. 2011. Health Reference Center Academic. Web. 21 Sep. 2011. "Understanding Donation. " Donate Life America. Mar 2011. Web. 21 Sep 2011. .