Dusty Brandt Howard
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People with HIV who need a kidney or liver transplant will now be able to receive organ transplants from donors with HIV, according to the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS). Previously, kidney and liver transplants were restricted only to people participating in research studies.
The new rule, which takes effect immediately, comes after a study in The New England Journal of Medicine which showed that kidney transplants between people with HIV had "similar high rates of overall survival and low rates of organ rejection" as transplants between those living without HIV.
"This rule removes unnecessary barriers to kidney and liver transplants by expanding the organ donor pool and improving outcomes for transplant recipients with HIV," says Xavier Becerra, Secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services.
Due to the U.S. lifting of a 25-year ban on HIV-positive organ transplants with the passage of the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) in 2013, approximately 500 transplants of kidneys and livers from HIV-positive donors have occurred in the last decade. However, HOPE only allowed for these transplants to occur within research studies and under such impossibly strict conditions that most organ donation centers could not follow them.
In 2010, surgeons in South Africa provided the first evidence that using HIV-positive donor organs was safe in people with HIV, but the practice wasn't allowed in the U.S. outside of research studies until now. Then, in 2019, a team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore made history by performing the world's first kidney transplant from a living donor with HIV to an HIV-positive recipient.
This new rule from the HHS comes on the back of other health policy changes that help de-stigmatize LGBTQ+ people living with HIV, as well as members of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, the FDA eased restrictions on blood donations from gay and bisexual men. The new rule is expected to shorten the waitlists for organ donations, regardless of HIV status, by widening the pool of available organs.