06/05/2024
My thanks to the Denver Post today for running my op-ed to modify the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984. Incentivizing people to donate kidneys to strangers will save thousands of lives.
https://enewspaper.denverpost.com/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=1c4bb8be-2af1-4365-a8ec-c70517ae82f2&share=true&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3xupzkNpBkU5jccTg7ybK1imG_jO5QB7PDzduFh5syq-l3lb0H_-eNAsc_aem_AUZuDICSANpS6J9DD65FSoeg0LNQ1vJL5j0svXmiIOcIsFxU5ScJfHCoJ4VHFVWUvsrOBtzLlQw0ByWP_doB5gyR
Pig kidneys are promising, but tax credit for donors will save more Coloradans
By Jeff Blumenfeld
Guest Commentary
For the 96,500 Americans with end-stage renal disease desperately waiting for a kidney transplant, news that surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital kept a 62-year-old man alive for nearly two months on a genetically modified pig kidney is a promising advancement in medical science, a historic milestone.
Maybe someday xenotransplantation will become a reality for patients with kidney failure. It’s said that the longer you live, the longer you live, thanks to on-going advancements in medical science.
Until then, their best hope is a transplant from a living kidney donor, the gold standard, that lasts longer than a kidney from a deceased donor and could be scheduled in a matter of months, not years; recipients of deceased kidneys first have to wait for someone to die and die correctly so that their kidneys are still viable.
Currently, the only hope for the more than 557,000 Americans on dialysis, is either in-clinic treatment three days a week for four hours at a time, or at home every night. It’s like a living death that slowly deteriorates their health. What’s more, only 25% of dialysis patients have the strength to keep working full-time.
In Colorado, 1,085 patients are on the kidney waiting list according to the Organ Procurement & Transplantation Network. The shortage of kidneys is such, patients with kidney failure have to market themselves like a can of soup, like I did for two years, with websites, billboards, postcards, newspaper stories, car signs, daily social media updates, celebrity tweets, and TV appearances. Thanks to a paired exchange, a sort of kidney swap, any healthy person with two kidneys could help them, regardless of blood type.
In fact, a woman in Boulder learned of my story, and despite not being a match, donated anyway, thus qualifying me for an Activated Voucher, like a kidney ticket, that kicked off a regional search for the perfect match. It saved my life.
One thousand Americans who are on the waitlist are removed each month because they either died or have become too sick to be transplanted. The waiting time because of the kidney shortage is killing them.
For the last 24 years, the number of living donors has been a consistent 5,500 to 6,900, while the number of people who need kidneys has doubled. No policy proposal has yet succeeded in increasing the number of living kidney donations. However, there’s hope: a bill before Congress that will end the kidney shortage — the “End Kidney Deaths Act.”
I joined the Coalition to Modify NOTA that proposes the passage of the End Kidney Deaths Act, a 10-year pilot program to provide a $50,000 refundable tax credit over five years to living kidney donors who give kidneys to strangers. A refundable tax credit is a credit a taxpayer can get as a refund even if no tax is owed. This will help low-income donors and recipients the most by making donations affordable and increasing the number of kidneys for those with the longest waitlist time. The tax credit will help those most affected by the kidney shortage, as poorer and middle-income individuals often bear the brunt of kidney failure.
The End Kidney Deaths Act will level the playing field, making it easier for those at all income levels to receive a life-saving kidney.
By the 10th year after the passage of the End Kidney Deaths Act, 60,000 to 100,000 Americans who were dying on the waitlist will instead have healthy kidneys, and taxpayers will have saved $14 billion to $25 billion in health care costs, according to ModifyNOTA.org.
It will be a carefully regulated program.
Egg, plasma and s***m donors are paid; surrogates are compensated tens of thousands of dollars. Why not a carefully regulated tax incentive program for live kidney donors who donate to strangers?
Jeff Blumenfeld, an author and retired marketer, resides in Boulder. He was transplanted in late November 2023 after a two-year search for a donor. He is a member of the Colorado General Assembly Kidney Disease Prevention and Education Task Force. Read more about his journey at jeffskidneysearch.com.
The Denver Post
