December 1, 2000

Book Aims to Give a Voice to Relatives of Organ Donors

By PETER MONAGHAN

The relatives of organ donors are "perpetually silenced," says Lesley A. Sharp, an assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard College. "Quite literally, people do not want them to speak," she says. Ms. Sharp is writing a book on their effort to combat the anonymity of transplants through such practices as setting up Internet-based "cemeteries" to commemorate the dead and identify their beneficiaries.

Q. How are the relatives silenced?

A. Donor kin