The story goes back to 1993.

How does one begin to report such horror?¹ Ruben Navarro was 26 years old; he suffered from “severe” mental retardation and had been a resident of a long term care home. He unfortunately sustained a cardiac and respiratory arrest and was admitted to the hospital on life support on January 29, 2007. Unfortunately, what could go wrong did go wrong. In an operating room on February 3, he was to become an organ donor. Although the idea itself was altruistic, that is, Mr.

It has been said that, “. . . it takes years to build up trust, and it only takes suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.”¹ The words themselves tell us something about human nature, and unfortunately, are prescient in the context of organ transplants. At a time when a severe shortfall in donation has become emotionally palpable—approximately 18 people die every day while waiting—transplantation survives, imbedded within a fabric of trust.

Informed Consent has become one of the cornerstones of medical practice. A recent series of articles in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch raises questions concerning what constitutes adequate informed consent for well patients who offer to undergo surgery to provide organs for transplantation.¹  While I do serve on the Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation at the Department of Health and Human Services, this article expresses my personal thoughts and is not meant to represent the opinions of that committee.