More than 100,000 people are on a transplant waiting list, about 90% of which are waiting for a kidney. The U.S. transplant market is estimated at just under $6 billion in 2024, and expected to more than double in 10 years. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, in 2025 more than 7,000 organs were taken from living donors, while nearly 17,000 donations were harvested from deceased donors. In years past nearly all organ donations were from donors whose brain activity had ceased. Organs are now increasingly harvested earlier in the process, after the donor’s heart has stopped. The difference is known as circulatory death as opposed to brain death. Last near about half of organ donations (49%) were taken after circulatory death. Organ donation after circulatory death is thought to increase transplants. It also raises some questions among those who afraid organs are being harvested too early from people who are not truly dead yet. The following is from AP News:
Technology has helped overcome barriers to using those organs — ways to keep them from deteriorating as the heartbeat winds down — spurring this type of donation at the same time the nation is hunting ways to overcome a dire shortage. More than 100,000 people are on the transplant waiting list and thousands die waiting. Just over 49,000 transplants were performed last year.
There have been some recent examples of people waking up just before or during a procedures to harvest organs. Some people may worry that those who have signed an organ donor card are less likely to be revived than those who have not agreed to donate organs. It is easy to see how fear can creep in when they are afraid the surgical team is working at cross purposes. More from AP News:
By law, donation and transplant groups can’t participate in the decision to end life support, and they’re not in the room when it’s withdrawn. Organ retrieval cannot begin until death is declared. If death doesn’t occur quickly enough, within about two hours, the organs aren’t usable and retrieval isn’t attempted.
Donation after circulatory death can be an option if someone has a nonsurvivable injury but all brain function hasn’t ceased, and the family chooses to end life support. Death occurs after the heart gradually stops beating. Once that happens there’s a mandatory wait — five minutes, according to guidelines from the American Society of Transplant Surgeons — to be sure it won’t restart. Then the person’s doctor declares death.
According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, there were more than 48,000 transplants in 2024 compared to around 108,000 on transplant waiting lists. The demand for organs far exceeds the supply. The reason organs are scarce is because living people and their family members have little reason to donate knowing there is little in it for them. It seems the only party involved in the organ transplant industry who does not profit from the process is the donor. What are your organs worth? That depends on many things, but one website estimates that on the black market your kidneys are worth $200,000, liver $157,000, heart $119,000 and the list goes on. Why not create a free market for organs? Your medical history could contain valuable information about the quality of your organs. When death is imminent, transplant teams could bid on your organs. At first glance that may sound horrible, but it is not. If the owners of donatable organs (or their heirs) were able to be compensated, say, $10,000 to cover some of the cost of a funeral, far fewer valuable organs would be buried or cremated with the deceased owner.
AP NEWS: More organs are being donated after the heart stops, not brain death