ORGAN DISTRIBUTION: Sen. Santorum Backs HHS Rules
In a Washington Times op-ed, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) outlines his support for new Department of Health and Human Services regulations that would change how donated organs are distributed. He notes that the new rules were drafted "because of a growing concern that the organ allocation process has been dominated by a narrow regionalism." He notes, "Within the current system, donated livers are, in effect, trapped within the small service areas of each of the country's 63 transplant centers," with the "result ... that transplant patients in some parts of the country must wait substantially longer to be offered an organ than patients in other areas -- regardless of need." Santorum goes on to defend the new rules as an effort to "make the process of creating organ transplant policy a more public one by establishing criteria for the membership of the nation's Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and by setting guidelines for the policymaking process." He concludes: "As the record shows, I have rarely been on the same side as [HHS] Secretary Shalala on national health issues -- but in this case we stand on common ground. Why? Because few federal policies affect that lives of American citizens in the same manner as does our organ allocation process. I believe that human organs are too precious a resource to be arbitrarily allocated by a private contractor without public oversight" (7/16).
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