"..EU adopts new rules on organ transplants.."

People needing organ transplants should face shorter waiting times after the European Parliament approved a draft directive on "quality and safety standards for human organs used for transplants." 

The directive covers all stages of the chain from donation to transplantation and provides for cooperation between member states. Over the past 50 years organ transplants have become an established practice worldwide. Yet the queues are long with "60,000 patients now on waiting lists in the EU", and "every day 12 people on the lists die". This has sparked an upsurge in illegal organ trafficking, a practice which benefits criminal gangs and can have profoundly negative consequences, particularly for the donor. Common quality and safety standards are needed at EU level to assist the donation, transplantation and exchange of organs.

A key step is to designate the competent authority in each country responsible for quality and safety standards. These authorities will have to establish rules for all stages from donation to transplantation or disposal, based on the standards laid down in the directive. Member states can keep or introduce more stringent rules if they wish. The authorities will approve procurement organisations and transplant centres, set up reporting and management systems for serious adverse reactions, collect data on the outcome of transplants and supervise organ swaps with other member states and third countries. Traceability from donor to patient and vice-versa will be part of the system, while confidentiality and data security will be ensured.

Member states must ensure the highest possible protection of living donors. 

Organ donations must be voluntary and unpaid but living donors may receive compensation provided it is strictly limited to making good the expenses and loss of incomes related to the donation. Member states must ban any advertising of a need for, or availability of, human organs where the aim is financial gain. This aims to prevent anyone from within or outside the EU from advertising the availability of organ transplants anywhere within the EU.

The Commission will set up a network of authorities and lay down procedures to transmit information between member states. Governments may also set up agreements with European organ exchange organisations.

Efforts to boost voluntary organ donation through public awareness campaigns have met with limited success. Some countries operate an opt in system where citizens are presumed not to be donors unless they actively choose to register. Others have an opt out system, whereby citizens are automatically registered as donors unless they explicitly choose not to be. 

Spain and others have boosted voluntary organ donation rates by establishing a network of transplant coordinators, who liaise with families of deceased people to discuss transplantation options. Over 80% of Europeans support the donor card but only around only 12% actually have one. There are also huge differences in donor numbers between member states. In Spain there are 34.6 donations per million people compared with 0.5 per million in Romania.

Trying to match donors and recipients separately in each member state seriously limits options, also leading to organ trafficking. Existing exchange organisations - Eurotransplant (Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Croatia, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovenia) and Scandiatransplant (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland) cover only limited numbers of EU countries. 

".The creation of a European standard for organ transplants with harmonized quality assurance systems, improved cooperation between member states and higher number of donors through specific campaigns and administrative procedures could make a difference.."

With a growing number of people resorting to organ tourism, the European Parliament is seeking tougher measures to prevent its citizens from travelling abroad to receive organ transplants with organs acquired through organ trafficking. 

The new measures will give every EU state an organised way of tracking donors, receivers, doctors and hospitals involved in organ transplants. This will make any kind of organ tourism targeting Europeans, very difficult, and possibly illegal. Even if someone goes outside the EU to get a transplant, unless that is approved by their home country, they will not be able to hide what they have done as they will need long-term aftercare. 

 Evidence of how organs are obtained in China was presented to the European Parliament, so states will be on notice to carefully investigate the origins of organs. Individual states could decide to include in their national legislation, extra rules such as banning all organs from outside the EU.