Keeping organ donors informed

In the past, Dr. Joan Brookyser has been an aggressive proponent of organ donation. But last year, she decided against allowing her organs to be harvested after her death — at least not in Nevada.

Dr. Brookyser is a retired ICU kidney doctor who helped create the state’s organ donor program more than 30 years ago — and still believes in the concept. “It is critically important that Nevada have a highly successful and well-run organ donor program,” she told the Review-Journal’s Carri Geer Thevenot.

Yet Dr. Brookyser maintains that two aspects of the state’s current organ donor effort trouble her to such an extent that she is now refusing to participate.

First, she says that most people who agree to become organ donors are not fully informed that, along with the heart, liver and other organs, a whole host of tissues can also be harvested, some of which may be sold for a profit.

Second, she’s opposed to a state law that allows relatives to OK donations from a deceased family member who declined to participate in the program.

” ‘No’ doesn’t mean ‘no’ here and ‘yes’ has no boundaries,” she said.

Organ donations save lives. More than 120,000 Americans — including 553 Nevadans — are currently awaiting the gift of life. We encourage Nevadans to consider participating.

But it is indeed troubling that the law allows donations from people who have declined to sign up. Just as a will honors the wishes of the deceased in estate matters, a person’s decision regarding organ donation should be respected in death. Absent affirmative consent prior to death, an individual’s body parts shouldn’t be collected for medical use.

On the matter of uninformed donors, however, the doctor is on less firm ground.

Registration forms at at the DMV and the Nevada Donor Network already allow donors to opt out of certain parts of the program. Not only can donors list any organs or tissues they don’t want to donate, they may also decline to allow any parts of their bodies to be used for research. So if it bothers them that certain tendons or other tissues may be sold for profit, they are free to withhold their consent for those specific uses.

The key, of course, is ensuring potential donors are aware of their options.

“Maybe we need to revisit this and clarify and make sure that people understand what they are committing to,” Assemblyman Philip O’Neill, a Carson City Republican, suggested.

Indeed. Anything that strengthens this vital endeavor while also more fully informing participants about the details of their involvement would be worth pursuing.