More information on organ donors urged

CHICAGO — A case in which a high-risk organ donor infected four patients with the AIDS virus and hepatitis C has led a medical ethicist to warn that patients need to know more about whose organs they're getting.

Public-health officials said Tuesday the Chicago cases are the first known instance of HIV transmission through organ transplants since 1986.

They're also the first known instance in which one organ donor has spread hepatitis C and HIV at the same time, said Dr. Matt Kuehnert of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC and other public-health officials are investigating the Chicago cases, including whether the four transplant recipients could have passed on the diseases during the months they were unaware of their infections.

Officials emphasized that the risk of getting any disease from transplanted organs is less than 0.01 percent. But the transplant system is not 100 percent safe: Standard testing failed to detect HIV in the Chicago cases.

People waiting for organs should be told as much pertinent information as possible about potential donors, said University of Pennsylvania medical ethicist Art Caplan.

Transplant surgeons generally decide what information is given to patients and their families.

Not every aspect of a potential donor's life is fair game, but patients have a right to know "if a donor dropped dead in a bathhouse with a needle in his arm," Caplan said.

It's not clear why the donor in the Chicago cases was considered high-risk or how much the four patients were told.

Officials declined Tuesday to identify the four Chicago patients, the donor or what organs were transplanted.

The four patients got their organs in January at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Rush University Medical Center and the University of Chicago Medical Center. Two had their operations at the University of Chicago hospital.

The Chicago hospitals were told the donor was high-risk, but none would say what information was relayed.

Initial tests on the donor for HIV, hepatitis and other conditions came back negative, most likely because the donor had acquired the infections in the three weeks before death.