A Boston, USA, judge ruled last week that the NPO that manages the organ transplant system in the country can’t wriggle out of claims it discriminated against black people seeking kidney transplants, reports Reuters.
In her ruling, District Court Judge Indira Talwani largely rejected the United Network for Organ Sharing’s bid to dismiss two lawsuits accusing the group of using a race-based and unscientific calculation requiring black people with kidney failure to be sicker than patients of other races before they could receive a transplant.
She said plaintiffs Deon Santos and Mark Thompson had done enough to allow their racial discrimination claims against UNOS to move forward, saying in part that their allegations that UNOS had allowed and encouraged hospitals to calculate black people’s kidney function based on their race constituted racial discrimination under the Civil Rights Act.
Representatives for UNOS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The country’s Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network was created by federal law in 1984, and requires that a registry to match organs to patients be established: it directed that a non-profit organisation operate it. UNOS has been the operating NPO since 1986.
The organ transplantation system in the country has come under scrutiny in recent years over concerns about mismanagement, and in July, the Department of Health and Human Services said it had launched a reform of the system after a probe found premature attempts to start organ retrieval while patients showed signs of life.
Santos and Thompson, who are each suing UNOS and the hospitals where they received treatment, are among at least 10 people who have filed lawsuits countrywide against the network over similar claims related to kidney transplants since 2023.
They allege that their kidney transplants were unfairly delayed or that they were unable to get on the transplant eligibility list because of the calculation used by UNOS and medical providers.
But UNOS argues that it could not have discriminated against the patients because transplant hospitals calculate patients’ kidney function values, and UNOS’ policy on kidney transplants did not mention this calculation before 2022.
In July 2022, the organ network said it was notifying transplant hospitals to stop using the race-adjusted calculation, which was first used in the 1990s, and that it could result in longer wait times for some people seeking transplants.
Although her ruling allowed the majority of Santos’ and Thompson’s claims, Talwani dismissed their requests for an injunction barring UNOS from engaging in the racially discriminatory practices alleged in their lawsuits after noting that UNOS had barred the use of the race-based calculation in 2022.
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