WHO Stifles International Blood and Organ Donations, Argue Professors

[Clark]

https://www.law.virginia.edu/news/202410/who-stifles-international-blood-and-organ-donations-argue-professors

WHO Stifles International Blood and Organ Donations, Argue Professors

Professor Kimberly Krawiec, Nobel Prize Winner Alvin E. Roth of Stanford Argue World Health Organization Policies Need Revision

October 8, 2024
Josette Corazza

The World Health Organization’s guidance on blood and organ donation is blocking the benefits of international cooperation and costing lives, says Professor Kimberly Krawiec of the University of Virginia School of Law.

Krawiec and co-author Alvin E. Roth explain the drawbacks of current WHO standards in their paper “WHO Says Countries Should Be Self-Sufficient In (Unremunerated) Organs and Blood.” https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4935827
Roth is an affiliated scholar on the National Bureau of Economic Research and a professor of economics at Stanford University. He is the 2012 Nobel Prize winner in economics for his work on market design. Krawiec is the Charles O. Gregory Professor of Law at UVA; much of her work focuses on “taboo trades” — also the name of her podcast — such as blood and plasma, transplantable organs, and egg and sperm markets.
In the paper, Krawiec and Roth argue that nations cannot meet the demand for donated organs and blood because many follow WHO’s principles that such donations be unpaid and made within the country, rather than obtained across borders. Instead, the authors say, countries should work together and share transplantable organs and blood products, which can aid smaller countries and those without well-developed donation systems.
The authors recommend that WHO allow poorer countries to buy blood products with foreign aid, encourage international kidney exchange, and facilitate well-designed and ethical pilot studies on the effects of incentives in various settings. A more flexible and cooperative approach to donation would improve the global availability of organs and blood, they say.
Krawiec recently answered questions about her research and how WHO policies can and should change.
What motivated you to critique the WHO principles of self-sufficiency and nonremuneration in organs and blood?

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