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At a congressional briefing last
week, HIV and transplant experts joined patients in calling for legislation
that would allow HIV-positive people to donate organs to other HIV-positive
people. Such a move would speed the transplant process for people with the
virus while reducing the long waiting lists for uninfected patients, said Dr.
Peter Stock, a University of California-San Francisco transplant surgeon.
“Any opportunity we have to get a
group of people transplanted quicker and open up spots for others makes a whole
lot of sense. Patients with HIV are frequently getting too sick to wait for the
transplant,” said Stock. Lifting the ban would “skim five years, six years off
the waiting list.”
Doctors would need to conduct
clinical trials to ensure transplants between HIV-positive people are safe.
However, these can only be done once the federal ban is ended, since that 1988
law prohibits HIV-positive organ donations even for research purposes. Some
experts are worried about the chance for passing drug-resistant HIV from a
donor to a recipient whose virus is well-controlled. But Stock and others say
treatments have advanced to the point where the likelihood of that is minimal.
“If the recipient’s viral load is
suppressed, it’s highly unlikely they’ll get additional strain of virus. But
that is going to be one of the goals of the research,” said Dr. Michael
Horberg, chair-elect of the HIV Medicine Association.
An estimated 500 HIV-positive US
patients die annually from non-virus-related causes, making their organs
eligible for donation, according to a 2011 study. Several hundred HIV patients
are on donor waiting lists - meaning that, in theory, there are enough
potential HIV-positive donors for every HIV-positive patient needing a
transplant.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
