ASN and Advocates From 21 Other Health Care Organizations are on Capitol Hill Urging Congress to Support Kidney Disease Research and the Living Donor Protection Act

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 -- The American Society of Nephrology issued the following news release:

Advocates from the American Society of Nephrology (ASN)and the 21 other health care organizations listed below are meeting with their representatives and senators today. They will urge Congress to continue its historic support of research funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and to cosponsor and pass the Living Donor Protection Act (H.R. 1270), no-cost legislation to eliminate barriers to living donation and increase access to transplants.

"The prevalence of kidney diseases in the U.S. is at a record high - I would even say rampant," said Crystal A. Gadegbeku, MD, chair of the ASN Policy and

Advocacy Committee. "With a tremendous need for more innovation in kidney

therapies coupled with a national organ shortage, we need Congress to move

both to provide kidney-specific research funding, similar to the Special Diabetes Program, which has led to a Food and Drug Administration-approved artificial pancreas - and to take steps to eliminate barriers to donation

by enacting the Living Donor Protection Act. This year's Government Accountability Office (GAO) report about the prevalence of kidney diseases in America and the underfunded state of kidney research should be both a wake-up call and a rallying cry for members of Congress and all Americans." In January, the GAO released a report detailing that 17% of Americans (40 million) have kidney diseases and about 680,000 have kidney failure and

whom rely on dialysis or a transplant to live. The GAO data shows that Medicare spends nearly $33 billion on kidney failure, while the investment in

federally funded kidney research is the equivalent of just about 1% of that amount. The United States Renal Data System(USRDS) data places total Medicare spending for all kidney diseases at $103 billion. In order to bring better value to Medicare and improve patient outcomes, patient and physician

advocates are urging Congress to support an additional $150 million per year over 10 years to establish a Special Statutory Funding Program for Kidney Research at The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), supplementing regularly appropriated funds they currently receive.

Advocates are also asking Congress to pass the Living Donor Protection Act, H.R. 1270, to remove barriers to living organ donation to address the nation's organ shortage crisis. There are over 100,000 Americans on the kidney transplant wait list. While every 14 minutes a patient is added to that list, 13 Americans die every day waiting for a kidney transplant.

Besides increasing quality of life, transplants also save Medicare expenditures compared to dialysis: Medicare about $30, 000 per transplant patient versus nearly $90,000 per hemodialysis patient annually on average.

GAO also highlighted that the government's unique role in the care of patients with kidney failure. In 1972, Congress made a commitment to treat all Americans with kidney failure through the Medicare End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Program--the only Medicare program that provides coverage for patients with a specific health condition regardless of age.