Refusal of transplant organs for non-medical reasons including COVID-19 status

Abstract

Transplant centers and physicians in the United States have limited guidance on the information which they can and cannot provide to transplant candidates regarding donors of potential organs. Patients may refuse organs for a variety of reasons ranging from pernicious requests including racism to misinformation about emerging medicine as with the COVID-19 vaccine and infection. Patient autonomy, organ stewardship, and equity are often at odds in these cases, but precedent indeed exists to help address these challenges. This work uses such cases to highlight the urgent need for uniform, national policy prohibiting informational requests unrelated to well-established risks.