"Despite continuing advances in medicine and technology, the demand for organs drastically outstrips the number of organ donors," states a United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) fact sheet. UNOS is a nonprofit charitable organization that, under the authority of the federal government, maintains the United States' organ transplant waiting list and works to develop organ transplantation policies and raise awareness about organ donation. According to UNOS, the chronic shortage of organ donors is the most critical issue facing the field of organ transplantation. While 22,854 lifesaving organ transplant operations were performed in 2000, over fifty-eight hundred people died while waiting for a transplant —an average of more than fifteen every day. In February 2002, there were over seventy-nine thousand patients waiting for an organ transplant, up from less than fifty-five thousand in 1996.

Factors behind the organ shortage

Ironically, the increasing success rate of organ transplant procedures is one reason that...