Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — The American Medical Association on Tuesday shelved its plan to study what effect money would have on organ donations for at least six months.
A slim majority of the 538 delegates attending the AMA’s winter meeting in San Francisco voted to table the matter.
Congress in 1984 outlawed paying donors any kind of consideration for their organs after they die. But doctors say there’s a severe shortage of donated organs, and an AMA committee estimates 15 people die each day awaiting transplants.
The committee, the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, recommended in a report that the AMA support pilot studies to determine if financial incentives such as helping with funeral expenses and tax benefits would encourage more people to donate their organs.
"I’m a physician and my duty is to the living," said study supporter Dr. Phil Cascade of Ann Arbor, Mich. "If we don’t do everything we can to save lives we will be morally responsible for their deaths."
Many doctors at the AMA meeting, though, found the idea unethical.
Dr. Michelle Petersen of Omaha, Neb., said the "potential for financial coercion will be difficult to measure." She also worried that "paying people for parts" would anger those who donate their organs out of altruism.
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