The good news and the bad news about organ donation

The number of organ transplants in the United States increased 6% in 2004. That's over 27,000 lives saved. Organs from deceased donors were up 11%, and organs from live donors were up 2%. That's the good news.

Here's the bad news:
- Last year 43,128 people were added to the national transplant waiting list.
- Last year 6,228 people were removed from the waiting list because they had died. Another 1,594 were removed from the list because they had become too sick to undergo transplant surgery.
- At the end of 2004, over 87,300 people were on the national transplant waiting list. That's up from about 83,900 at the end of 2003.

Here's more bad news. While 90% of Americans support organ and tissue donation:
- only 62% say they would be willing to donate some or all of their organs and tissue when they die, and
- only 55% of Americans agree to donate the organs of a deceased relatives when asked for their consent.

The organ shortage continues to get worse because Americans bury or cremate about 20,000 transplantable organs every year. That means thousands of Americans are buried every year next to the organs that could have saved their lives.

Most people don't have any good reason not to donate their organs when they die. But they don't have any good reason to donate them either. LifeSharers gives people a good reason - a better chance of getting a transplant if they ever need one.

Data sources:
Fox News
UNOS
Coalition on Donation

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