It is a simple fact that without donors there can be no transplants.

It is also a fact that while the number of eligible transplant candidates swells to over 65,000 (and higher), the number of donor organs stays at a relatively fixed level of approximately 10,000 per year.

Only two organs are controlled by what is known as a Status Level System, where as the patient gets sicker, he (or she) moves higher up the waiting list.  These organs are the heart and liver.  Multiple organ transplants are also sometimes covered this way.  The late ex-Governor Robert Casey of Pennsylvania is an example (albeit a somewhat infamous one).

All other organs, including lungs, are allocated on a basically "time-on-list" method, with the added complexity of the candidate's position within various categories of eligibility such as size, blood type (and at some centers CMV status), that determine the exact recipient for a given donor organ.  Of course, this is the way it is SUPPOSED to work.

This entire system is administered by U.N.O.S., the United Network for Organ Sharing (www.unos.org).

Obviously, the process of getting a transplant is fraught with administrative complexities that are in place solely to try to allocate what few donor organs there are.

For every two or three successful transplants, there is likely to be a failed one.  But for each, there is a grieving donor family that made an extremely difficult decision at a time of almost incomprehensible grief.  For that selfless act, all transplant candidates, recipients and their families must offer a heartfelt:

Thank You.

Join me in a warm embrace of the real heroes in this war--tissue and organ donors and their families.