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Texas has an organ donation problem. Close to 600 people on the state’s donation registry died in 2010 before they could ever receive the organs that they were waiting for. Lawmakers say that’s because not enough healthy Texans know about the state’s organ donation program and, therefore, aren’t registered to help those in need. Only about 7 percent of Texas residents are currently registered as organ donors.
The Texas House of Representatives already passed a bill that would transfer control of the Texas organ registry to a newly-created, private non-profit organization. The Texas Senate is expected to pass the bill in short order. The change would likely mean a more concentrated effort to register donors. Currently, there are an estimated 10,600 Texans waiting for organ transplants, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
There may be irony in the fact that Texas and organ donation has been in the news lately for a positive reason: the first full facial transplant in the United States was performed Dallas Weins, a Texas man, in March. The lips, nose, skin, muscle and nerves that were used on Weins were from an anonymous donor, but the operation was funded through the U.S. military.
The success of that operation may give the impression that the Texas organ donor program is working fine, but it’s unlikely that the candidate for the facial transplant had to go through the normal organ donation process since the procedure was backed and funded by the Department of Defense, which has donated millions of dollars to research for the experimental procedure.
