Getting Paid For Kidney Donations Can Raise Donor Rates: Study

Paying a kidney donor can increase the number of donors, according to a new study headed by Dr. Thomas Peters, an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine. The team studied how kidney donor rates can be improved, especially as more than 100,000 Americans need donations, they surveyed 1,011 adults, 43 percent of whom were between 45 and 64.

Scientists found that while 68 percent, or 689 people said they would donate a kidney, as humans can live normal lives with just one kidney, a much smaller percentage, that is 23 percent (235 people), said they would donate only to certain people. Another 9 percent, that worked out to 87 people, declined to donate.

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network reported that 63,742 people died between 2004 to 2013, while waiting for kidney donations.

Researchers found that 59 percent of the people studied agreed to donate if they were paid $50,000. About 32 percent said that the money was not a significant factor in their donations, while 9 percent said they did not like the idea of getting money for donating.

However, the experts felt that money for the donations will not be a "legal transaction," yet studying how it affects donor rates may lead to new policies that will increase these rates.

"While many transplantation professionals still oppose direct payments in organ donation, others affirm that financial incentives should be debated in public," the authors wrote in the study that was published in JAMA Surgery. "Offering $5,000 or $10,000 to give a kidney to family and friends or strangers, respectively, were amounts at which participants began to consider donation more positively. These authors further found that undue inducement payment levels for nephrectomy were $50,000 and $100,000 for family and friends and strangers, respectively, thus concluding that lower amounts of payment may motivate the public in an acceptable fashion."