This post responds to my reader, Chuck Kleinhans,  who asked for a follow-up to my previous post: Too Disabled For An Organ Transplant, which ran last week.  Chuck wanted to know a little more about the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA).

The National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) was enacted in 1984.  It is the first federal organ transplant law.  Prior to that time, states organized their own organ transplant rules and they worked!  The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA) was enacted in all states, which means that states preserved their autonomy, but strove for consistency and uniformity with regard to organ transplant rules.  The UAGA was first adopted in 1968 and was revised in 1987 in accordance with NOTA.

In short, NOTA limits all contributions to the U.S. organ supply pool to organs that are altruistically supplied.  In other words, it prohibits any “valuable…

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