Encouraging Organ Donation

I am very proud to be the author of a new law that will further encourage bone marrow and live organ donation.  Act 65 provides a tax credit for businesses that grant a paid leave of absence to employees for the purpose of bone marrow or living organ donation.  Here are some facts on organ donation:

• As of June 2006, 42.83% of individuals in Pennsylvania are designated organ donors on their driver’s license, photo identification card or permit.
• In 2006, Pennsylvania doctors performed 2,249 transplants as compared to only 1,991 four years earlier.
• Most living donors are back to work within four to six weeks, and that with new surgical techniques used in kidney donation that time can be cut in half.
• Because of the lack of available donors in this country, 3,916 kidney patients, 1,570 liver patients, 356 heart patients and 245 lung patients died in 2006 while waiting for life-saving organ transplants.

Many people on transplant waiting lists would benefit from a donation by a living organ donor. However, fear of loss of income or loss of a job is a key reason cited as a deterrent for becoming a living donor because the donor must miss more than a week of work. This has all-to-tragic results: In Pennsylvania, alone, 469 people died last year waiting for a donor and 107 were too sick to receive a transplant.  

I know how important live donations are, because I was the recipient of a bone marrow transplant over a year ago. Fortunately, my donor was readily available as my identical twin brother—other people aren’t so lucky, but this new law could help them.