Organs are not sold, but donated. The buying and selling of organs is prohibited by law in the United States. The federal government regulates the system used for matching donor organs with potential recipients.
 
In 1984, to equitably and fairly distribute organ donations and to establish a national registry of bone marrow donors, Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act. This led to the selection of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) to administer the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
 
UNOS coordinates the recovery and distribution of organs. A national computer system maintains a list of donors and recipients. To determine the best match between donor and recipient, UNOS considers the urgency of the patient’s medical condition and the amount of time the patient has been on the waiting list. UNOS also considers such factors as blood type, tissue type and physical size of the organ. While the location of the potential donor may help decide who qualifies for an available organ, the social or financial position of the recipient are not factors.
 
Individual hospitals do not have direct access to donated organs; they must work through their area’s organ procurement organization (OPO), which provides the official link between donors and those in need of organ or tissue transplants. Each OPO serves a region designated by the Federal Government and is a nonprofit organization.
 
The identity of the donor and the donor’s family is guarded, as is that of the organ recipient. The recipient can only obtain general information, such as the age of the donor and the city and state from which the organ came. Similar information on the recipient may be released.