Bureau of Health proposing new regulations for organ donor solicitation

AUGUSTA – The Maine Bureau of Health is proposing new regulations that would prohibit people who are seeking donations of human body parts from being paid on a per-organ basis.

The preliminary rules were written in response to concerns about a brain-collection program that has sparked 11 lawsuits and two criminal investigations.

In the lawsuits, families have said they didn’t give proper consent before their relatives’ brains were removed at the state medical examiner’s office and then shipped to a Maryland research institute that studies severe mental illnesses.

A Maine man was paid between $1,000 and $2,000 for each brain he collected, a practice that would be prohibited under the proposed rules.

Dr. Lani Graham of the Bureau of Health said the proposed rules largely are based on a new policy in the medical examiner’s office over the donation of human body parts. But that policy applies only when the medical examiner takes custody of a body.

The more comprehensive regulations, which are still in a preliminary stage, would affect groups including the New England Organ Bank and the Maine Hospital Association.

The rules also would require that donor families be told whether the body parts are to be used for lifesaving transplants, medical research or another purpose. They further would require that people requesting consent receive training and explain in clear language exactly what they are requesting.

The rules may not be updated this year because of questions about the scope of the health bureau’s authority under existing state law, Graham said. But she thinks the existing regulations, which date back to the mid-1980s, need to be revised.

“I don’t think it would be appropriate to just leave those rules in place,” she said. “They’re completely out of date.”

Alexandra Glazier, a lawyer for the New England Organ Bank, which coordinates transplants of lifesaving organs in Maine, agrees that the current rules are outdated.

She is comfortable with the new rules to the extent that they are similar to the medical examiner’s office policy.

“We just want to make sure that the regulations are workable for us,” Glazier said.