New Guidelines Sought for Diseased Organ Donors

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U.S. health experts are rethinking guidelines for kidney donors because of a brain infection that two transplant patients developed after receiving their new organs.

The University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson recently revealed that the child donor had a rare, often fatal infection that was not diagnosed until after the transplant, The New York Times reported. Before the surgery, it was thought the child had a brain disorder caused by a nontransmissible autoimmune disease.

Dr. Michael G. Ison, chairman of an advisory committee on infectious disease transmission for the United Network for Organ Sharing, which coordinates U.S. transplants, said the cases point out the need for a national policy governing donations from people with undefined neurological conditions. Currently, those decisions are left to transplant centers.

Ison's committee has begun studying nationwide data to see how many other similar patients have become donors, the Times said.

In 1 percent of cases, organ donors transmit diseases, including West Nile virus, rabies, HIV, tuberculosis and even cancer, the organ network says. More than 100,000 people are waiting for a transplant, the Times noted.

"This is a difficult topic, because organs are really scarce and patients who need a transplant are typically quite ill and need a transplant quickly, and sometimes it's hard to do all the testing that one could possibly think of for all the infections out there," said Dr. Eileen Farnon, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.