Organ and Tissue Donation

Jody Smith

Honors English 10
Mrs. Graves
6/3/16

What I knew/What I wanted to know

The Human Machine, a phrase said by many fitness trainers and doctors alike in order
to describe the human body. This rains true in many cases because the human bodys organs act
like different parts of a machine. But what if a part gets broken? This was the main question
going through my head when I began my research on organ and tissue donation.
At the beginning all that I knew was that doctors could take an organ from somebody and
put it into someone else. Truthfully I didnt think that there was anything else to the topic.
However, a brief presentation about organ donation piqued my interest in the topic. I learned that
even though people die every day there is still a large deficit in the number of donors. From this
piece of information I formulated my research question: How does organ donation impact the
people involved and what makes it so that people dont donate?
Even though there are many aspect of organ donation I mostly focused on that question.
Organ donation can save peoples lives however there are not enough donors to supply the
patients. With research into this topic it would be possible to find ways to increase the number of
potential donors.
The Search

The several week search that I undertook helped me learn the basics of organ donation.
Initially I was only searching of logistics of the process including: limits, the cans and cants, and
the process. I searched for What organs can be donated? and found several sources. The most

Noteworthy of these sources was Lifenethealth.org because it was able to answer almost all of
my questions. The next step to my research was to find why there are fewer donors than needed.
This subject proved harder to find than the previous one.
I was unable to find the perfect source that told me all about why people did not donate. I
searched Why dont people donate? and after reading several articles and webpages I was
unable to form a complete answer. All of what I had read had been pointing towards religion as
the biggest influence in this decision. But I was not convinced that religion was the only reason
why people didnt donate. Several sources later I had the sudden realization that I was probably
looking from a wrong angle. I searched for Organ donation common questions and was greeted
by a new set of answers. The biggest help was the article Organ Donation after Cardiac Death.
This article directly addressed the questions that I was searching for, which was a big relief
because I had almost given up on finding the answers I needed.
Raw data of donation was the next topic and was a lot easier than the previous one. I was
personally surprised with myself that I had not researched this before. Finding this was
completely painless because I searched for Organ donation statistics and was immediately
greeted by several data sites.
While I was looking for answers online I was also looking for someone to interview. I
have in the past asked my parents if they happened to know somebody that was and expert on a
topic that I was researching. However I was surprised to discover that my next door neighbor Mr.
Adamson worked at Lifenet which was one of my previous most useful sources. The next time I
saw Mr. Adamson I talked with him asking if he would be willing to let me interview him and
then I emailed him to formally set up dates and time. I had been planning some basic questions

to ask whomever I was going to interview but when I found out that Mr. Adamson worked at
Lifenet I was able to come up with some specialized questions.
During my interview Mr. Adamson gave me some websites to look into in order to find
out more about the process of organ donation. I found many of these sources very helpful in
adding to my knowledge about organ donation. The most prevalent of these sites was UNOS
which contained statistics for the entire country and not just Virginia.
I only had a couple of miscellaneous questions that needed to be answered and they
didnt really fit into any category. I searched for each question and was able to get the answers
pretty easily. The most intriguing thing I found was how scientist were developing 3D printed
organs.
Results
There are very few things that can prevent people from donating organs. As long as the
organ is in a functioning state it can be transplanted. Even if the person is diseased they can still
donate. Only some extreme cancers like leukemia can make a person unable to donate. There is
also no age restriction to organ donation. As long as you are under sixty you can donate any kind
of organ that is accepted. Above sixty you can still do skin grafts and bone marrow grafts but
they will not accept organs like the heart.2 As for what can be donated, it is easier to answer this
with what can't be donated. A person cannot donate their whole eyes (but some parts of the eye
can be), their tongue, their esophagus, and any part of their nervous system.2,5
One fear preventing organ donation is that if you are registered as an organ donor then
the EMT will not save you, this is false because it goes against everything that the EMT had
sworn to do. Another deterrent is religion, but most religions actually support organ donation

because it is seen as the greatest act of charity. Some people are worried that their body will be
messed up before a funeral, however organ removal is treated as though it were a surgery. Some
people do not want to donate because they dont get anything out of it,4 however you are dead
most of the time so it doesnt really matter.
After interviewing my mentor, Mr. Dave Adamson I found out every area of the country
has a federally designated Organ Procurement Organization (OPO). Life Net if the OPO for
Virginia, (excluding DC) part of West Virginia, and North Carolina. Life Net collects the organs
of the deceased and processes tissue into a usable form. Life Net need the permission of the
family of the deceased, even if they are a registered organ donor, in order to collect the organs.
The organs that are collected can be limited based upon age, whether the owner was a drug user,
whether the owner had certain diseases. The basic summary is that if the transplant could hurt the
recipient then the organ is not accepted. In order for someone to receive organs the blood type
must be the same, and the genes of the donor must be close (not exact) to that of the recipient.
The most donated organ is kidneys and the most donated tissue is the cornea of the eye. Over the
years the survivor-ship of the recipient has increased significantly because of the increased
effectiveness of the anti-rejection drugs that are being made.
Here is some raw data about organ donation: 30000 people receive organ donations each
year, 1200000 people await transplants, every ten minutes a person is added to the waiting list,
there are 8500 deceased and 6000 living donors currently, 8000 people die each year because
they don't get the organs in time, and about 51% of Americans are organ donors.1,5

Every area of the country has a federally designated Organ Procurement Organization (OPO).
Life Net if the OPO for Virginia, (excluding DC) part of West Virginia, and North Carolina. Life
Net collects the organs of the deceased and processes tissue into a usable form. Life Net need the
permission of the family of the deceased, even if they are a registered organ donor, in order to
collect the organs. The organs that are collected can be limited based upon age, whether the
owner was a drug user, whether the owner had certain diseases. The basic summary is that if the
transplant could hurt the recipient then the organ is not accepted. In order for someone
to receive organs the blood type must be the same, and the genes of the donor must be close (not
exact) to that of the recipient. The most donated organ is kidneys and the most donated tissue is
the cornea of the eye. Over the years the survivor-ship of the of the recipient has
increased significantly because of the increased effectiveness of the anti-rejection drugs that are
being made.1,5
Donate Life Virginia is the main organization where all organ donation registry goes through.
They keep track of all of the current statistics regarding organ donation. Right now there are
about 113000 patients that are waiting for transplants. Every day 18 people die because they
could not get the necessary part.1
Another website that I was told to visit was UNOS the United Network For Organ
Sharing. UNOS is the federally contracted company that manages all of the organ donation it the
US. They were initially contracted in 1986 and has been the only national contracted company
ever since. According to UNOS there are only 5018 donors nationwide.5

Some facts I found interesting while performing research are that even though a person
might need a kidney transplant because their old ones do not work anymore they will leave the
old kidneys in the patient. One interesting thing is that it is not certain that your body will ever
accept a new organ, even with anti-rejection drugs. But there is also a chance that your body will
never reject the organ in the first place. This leads doctors to believe that there are more
mechanisms at work than are currently known. However one possible side effect of the antirejection drug can be diabetes. Did you know the Jewish faith prohibits heart donation because
the person is not seen as dead until their heart is completely dead. Doctors would usually
proclaim a person as dead long before the heart die, when the person is brain dead. Recently
working 3D printed organs have been successfully produced but the process is not refined yet so
there are many years between us and the day 3D printed organs can be used. The pros to these
are that they would be made of the persons cells so the person would not reject them. Any other
time the only way that a person is guaranteed that they would not need anti-rejection drugs is if
an identical twin is the donor.3

Development as a Researcher
Researching is a skill like any other, and that means in order to get good at it you must
practice. Over the several weeks that I spent researching I became more competent in what I was
researching and how I was researching. When I first started to perform my research I was
basically performing stabs in the dark in the hopes that I would find a source that would answer
my question and also be viable. This was shown when I was trying to find reasons people would
not donate. I spent hours trying to come up with a good source that answered my question
completely but to no avail. But almost like a miracle I was able to come up with search that gave

me the answers that I wanted. Over time I began to learn what I had to search for in order to
receive the results that I wanted. This made it so that towards the end I was almost having no
trouble finding resources.
I also became more competent in the topic that I was researching. I almost had no idea
what my sources were talking about when I first started. But, over time I started to know the
lingo and was able to clearly understand what my sources where saying. Terms that I had
trouble understanding when I first began my search I had no trouble with towards the end.

Resources
1. Statistics. Donate Life America. [accessed 2016 Jun 7]. https://donatelife.net/statistics/
2. LifeNet Health. LifeNet Health. [accessed 2016 Jun 7]. https://www.lifenethealth.org/
3. Myers, Gregory. 10 Things You Didn't Know About Organ Transplantation - Listverse.
Listverse. Listverse, 22 Nov. 2014. Web. 07 June 2016.
4. Steinbrook R. Organ Donation after Cardiac Death NEJM. New England Journal of
Medicine. 2007 Jul 19 [accessed 2016 Jun 7].
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmp078066
5. Home | UNOS. UNOS. [accessed 2016 Jun 7]. https://www.unos.org/