After The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a new HIV-positive organ donor final rule late last week, Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D., commended the provision.  The rule, resulting from the “HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act of 2013,” will allow those infected with HIV to donate their organs to other HIV-positive patients participating in clinical research.  Rep. Burgess cosponsored the HOPE Act. 

“It is gratifying to see this lifesaving law beginning to take shape,” Rep. Burgess said.  “HIV-positive patients whose course has been complicated by liver failure will now have another option in their fight for survival. And, medical researchers have gained a tool in their search for life saving treatments.”      

The HOPE Act was strongly supported by the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the Americans Society of Nephrology, HIV Medicine Association, and the American Society of Transplantation.

HHS Final Rule Summary:

This final rule amends the regulations implementing the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, as amended, (NOTA) pursuant to statutory requirements of the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act (HOPE Act), enacted in 2013. In accordance with the mandates of the HOPE Act, this regulation removes the current regulatory provision that requires the Organ Procurement Transplantation Network (OPTN) to adopt and use standards for preventing the acquisition of organs from individuals known to be infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). 
  
In its place, this regulation includes new requirements that organs from individuals infected with HIV may be transplanted only into individuals who are infected with HIV before receiving such organs and who are participating in clinical research approved by an institutional review board. The only exception to this requirement of participation in such clinical research is if the Secretary publishes a determination in the future that participation in such clinical research, as a requirement for transplants of organs from individuals infected with HIV, is no longer warranted. 
  
In addition, this regulatory change establishes that OPTN standards must ensure that any HIV-infected transplant recipients are participating in clinical research in accordance with the research criteria to be published by the Secretary. Alternately, if and when the Secretary determines that participation in such clinical research should no longer be a requirement for transplants with organs from donors infected with HIV to individuals infected with HIV, the regulation mandates that the OPTN adopt and use standards of quality, as directed by the Secretary, consistent with the law and in a way that ensures the changes will not reduce the safety of organ transplantation.