Drug Overdose Deaths Drive Increase in Number of Organ Donations: One Family’s Story of Hope from Despair

September 29, 2016

(ABC News) – In recent years, so many people have died as a result of the nation’s opioid epidemic that it has caused the number of organ donations from fatal overdose victims to skyrocket — an unexpected consequence that highlights the nation’s agonizing opioid crisis. n 1994, only 29 donors in the U.S. had died of drug overdoses. Last year, that number climbed to 848, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the nonprofit organization that manages the nation’s organ transplant system.