Contracting AIDS and HIV used to be an automatic route to a death sentence for many individuals. If you contracted the disease, resources were limited and you faced a grim future.
As technology has developed and treatments have improved, the life spans of patients with this disease have also improved. AIDS and HIV sufferers are now surviving longer and living functional lives. The HOPE Act, passed in 2013, provides another way for HIV/AIDS patients to increase their life span. Here are a few things to know about the new law.
What Is the HOPE Act?
The HOPE Act is a piece of legislation that lifts the ban on HIV/AIDS organ donation among the HIV/AIDS population. This law paves the way for HIV/AIDS patients to donate organs to other individuals who suffer from this debilitating chronic illness. In short, the legislation instructs the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to create standards to facilitate transplants of this nature.
HIV/AIDS patients often suffer from liver and kidney failure requiring transplantation to survive. A single organ donation can help save about eight lives. This law could potentially diminish the number of individuals who are waiting for transplant.
What Is the Impact of the HOPE Act?
The implementation of this law has the capacity to save many lives and reduce the organ donor waiting lists in a meaningful way, but has this actually occurred?
Researchers in Philadelphia are not optimistic. In Philadelphia, about 80 to 100 HIV/AIDS patients are awaiting transplants. Of the HIV/AIDS patients who could be potential donors, many had a high prevalence of hypertension, diabetes and hepatitis C antibodies which would disqualify them as potential donors.
However, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University indicated in previous studies that the HOPE Act could increase the HIV/AIDS donor pool by about 500 donors per year. Defining potential donors has had a marked impact on the predicted numbers of available organs, and adjusting the criteria to include marginal quality organs can increase the pool.
In addition to potentially prolonging life and reducing the wait times for individuals who are on the organ donation wait list, The HOPE Act can facilitate a better understanding of HIV/AIDS through research and harvesting organs.
The National Institutes of Health published criteria related to the HOPE Act. This criteria allow researchers to apply for Institutional Review Board approval for clinical research related to the protocols that are in place for this type of organ donation.
HIV/AIDS is a devastating chronic illness. The disease has changed the way medicine is delivered and developed. Now, with the passage of The HOPE Act and the prospect of receiving life-saving organs, HIV/AIDS patients have the opportunity to live longer, fuller lives. Although research shows some progress for these types of donations, there is still much work to be before we can say with certainty that the HOPE Act has had a major impact on HIV/AIDS organ donation.