There’s a Severe Kidney Shortage. Should Donors Be Compensated?

August 26, 2024

a clinical worker holding a sealed box that says "human organ"

(NPR) – More than 90,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for a kidney transplant. But an ongoing kidney shortage means a thousand people a month are removed from the waitlist, either because they die while waiting for a kidney or become too sick for a transplant.

Elaine Perlman wants to change that. “Enough is enough,” she says. “The kidney shortage is a solvable problem.”

Perlman is executive director of Waitlist Zero, a coalition supporting newly proposed federal legislation that would create a 10-year pilot program called the End Kidney Deaths Act. (Read More)