Experts say minorities have greatest need

BY MARK TAYLOR, POST-TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENT

Because African-Americans suffer disproportionately from end-stage renal disease, or kidney failure, the need for kidney and other organ donors is greater, said Dr. Silas Norman, a kidney specialist at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor.

Norman said community engagement is the key to persuading more people to indicate they would donate their organs. "It involves going into churches, community groups and other traditional black organizations, like black fraternities and sororities, to better educate the community about the need.

"Despite the epidemic of kidney disease among African-Americans and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic communities, it's surprising how many people are unaware of the need."

He said historically there has been a general mistrust of medicine in the black community based not just on historic practices, but access to care.

"And that mistrust has limited people from spontaneously coming forward to donate," he said. He said one myth is that physicians will not exert maximum lifesaving efforts if they know the patient is an organ donor.

He said African-Americans have a disproportionately high incidence of hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease. "There is some reluctance asking someone from another high-risk group to donate for fear that in 10 years they may need a donation themselves," he said.

Aisha Huertas, a spokeswoman for Donate Life America, a not-for-profit organization aiming to increase the number of registered donors, said disproportionately more minorities are on transplant waiting lists than whites.

But Huertas said the number of minorities willing to donate has increased dramatically in recent years. "In 2010, 90 million people from minority groups have registered to donate in the United States," she said. "In 2006 only 58 million had registered. That's an increase of more than 30 million. And while African-Americans are least likely to wish to be donors, that likelihood has significantly increased in the past year, from 31 percent who said they wished to donate organs or tissue in 2009 to 41 percent this year. This is a great achievement."