Organ and Tissue Donation
When we heard that France made organ donation the default for everyone — you have to opt out, not in — we thought we’d examine what’s going on in this country and if that could be a good idea here.
The good news is that for the fourth year in a row, a record number of organ transplants were performed in the U.S.; 33,606 procedures in 2016 alone, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. That’s an 8.5 percent increase over 2015, and a 19.8 percent increase since 2012. Nearly 95 percent of American adults say they support organ donation.
But — there’s always a “but” — only 48 percent of adults actually register to donate when they die. From that pool, only 3 out of every 1,000 potential donors die in such a way that makes donation even possible!
That’s why there are more than 119,000 people waiting for a donated organ and why 22 people a day die waiting for an organ donation that never arrives.