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Transplant barriers fall for HIV-positive
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The Associated Press
Thursday, November 3, 2005
Advocacy groups say they are making significant headway in efforts to ensure that HIV-positive people have the same access as other patients to kidney and liver transplants.
California recently became the first state to prohibit insurers from denying coverage for organ transplants based solely on a patient's HIV status.
In Arizona, a judge ruled that the state's Medicaid program can't deny a liver transplant to an HIV-positive woman based on her health status.
"When presented with the evidence, reasonable people have a hard time coming to the conclusion that an HIV-positive person should be denied a transplant," said Jon Givner, who heads the HIV Project at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a New York-based gay-rights group.
In the past, insurers often refused to pay for transplants for HIV-positive patients and many transplant centers also balked at approving such procedures.
They believed that the always-tight supply of donor organs should be directed toward patients whose survival prospects weren't clouded by the complication of HIV.
But a study at the University of California, San Francisco, has found no evidence of lower survival among HIV-positive patients after more than 30 organ transplants.
Arizona's Medicaid program had maintained a policy of refusing to pay for transplants for HIV-positive people.
But last month an administrative law judge said the program can't cite HIV as sole grounds for denying a liver transplant for Brenda Gwin, a 49-year-old from Phoenix who was diagnosed with end-stage liver disease in November 2004.
Though abiding by the judge's order, the Medicaid agency did not immediately overhaul its transplant policy. Spokeswoman Liz Olson said the agency would "explore modifications" to the policy based on an evaluation of medical evidence.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the California legislation into law in September.
"There are many reasons why a patient with HIV may not be suitable for a transplant," said the bill's sponsor, Assemblyman Paul Koretz.
"But the sole fact that they are HIV-positive is no longer considered a legitimate reason."
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