UCSF Study Prompts Calls to Repeal Ban on Transplanted Organs from HIV-Positive Donors

Last year, a team led by Dr. Peter Stock of UCSF reported on results from a large multicenter study testing the safety and feasibility of transplanting kidneys where both the donor and recipients were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The results, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the recipients survived nearly as long as non-HIV infected recipients of kidney transplants. As a result of the Stock-led trial, and a just-published paper from Johns Hopkins projecting that 500 to 600 H.I.V.-infected livers and kidneys would become available each year if the ban were repealed, the paradigm appears to be changing. Federal health agencies, including the CDC, are now urging, as reported by the N.Y. Times in today's editions, that the absolute ban on transplanting H.I.V.-positive organs be lifted.