Three out of four Americans say their decisions about donating organs have little to do with a raging debate over whether organs should go to local patients or sicker people who live farther away.
The poll, released Wednesday, deals a blow to those who oppose changing the current, geographic-based system to one that gives organs to the sickest patients first. Opponents argue that people would be less likely to donate organs if they were not used in the local community.But the poll found 75 percent of people saying it would not matter to them if organs were offered first to patients in the area or first to sicker people elsewhere.
"We view this poll as an encouraging example of the American spirit of giving and fairness in organ donation," said Craig Irwin, president of the National Transplant Action Committee, the patient group that paid for the Gallup poll and is pushing for the new, sickest-first policy.
The survey found support for the change, with 83 percent agreeing that "an organ from a donor should go to the sickest patient in the United States, no matter where they live."
At the same time, however, people believe that organs should be transplanted into patients with the best chance of surviving the surgery, which supports the arguments of the other side.
Under the current system, organs are given to patients who live near the donor, even if there are sicker patients elsewhere. Because patients are not evenly spread across the country, waiting times are substantially longer in some regions than others.
In March, the Department of Health and Human Services ordered the United Network for Organ Sharing, which runs the nation's transplant system, to come up with a new system that would equalize waiting times, particularly for liver transplants.
The network is fighting the regulation, arguing that it will jeopardize small transplant programs, create logistical problems and end up saving fewer people, because sicker patients might be less likely to survive a transplant surgery.
"We've always said that a `sickest-first' transplant policy sounds like the right thing at first, but that the facts show it would cost hundreds of patients their lives unnecessarily," said Dr. Lawrence G. Hunsicker, president of the organ network. "Fortunately, Americans don't go to pollsters for medical advice."
The random telephone poll of 1,000 Americans, conducted over the past two weeks, had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.