Bone marrow donations could become profitable as a result of lawsuit

November 16, 2009 by Baby Chums  
Filed under: Baby Health, News

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Current US law bans bone marrow donors to profit. However, a lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice challenges this prohibition as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause.

Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) involves taking a healthy sample of stem cells from bone marrow belonging to a healthy donor. This is then injected into the bone marrow of the donee. The new stem cells take over the production of the blood cells.

Ffion Moseley as a sickly baby - who has benefited from a bone marrow transplant

The Institute for Justice (IJ) filed suit against Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., asking that he be enjoined, (Refrained) from enforcing the federal criminal prohibition on compensating bone marrow donors. The prohibition is contained in the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984.

MoreMarrowDonors.org, the non-profit group, recruited the IJ to file the lawsuit to overturn the ban and allow for compensation to be made to donors.

Shaka Mitchell, president of MoreMarrowDonors.org said: “We think that there is much folly in a government law standing between a patient and a potentially life-saving program,”

Other plaintiffs in the suit include patients suffering from blood diseases like leukemia.

The plaintiffs argue that preventing sick people in need of bone marrow transplants from offering compensation to donors who could make those transplants possible, violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The counter concern is that payments will encourage individuals to conceal health conditions in order for donations to be accepted.

Bone marrow contains cells that are capable of becoming other types of blood cells. Thus they can be very beneficial and therapeutic for people with certain blood diseases.

An overturn of the ban could have a large impact on physicians, donors, and especially patients, including those with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and although the lawsuit may take a number of years to work its way through the federal court system.

In the meantime, news and media coverage may raise awareness of the shortage of bone marrow donors and trigger more donors to the registry.

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