Interview broadcast on the Lanigan & Malone Show (co-hosts John Lanigan and Jimmy Malone, with Doc Thompson) on WMJI  Radio 105.7 Cleveland on Tuesday, July 22, with David J. Undis, Executive Director of LifeSharers.

Click here to listen to a sound recording of the interview.

Unofficial transcript:

LANIGAN:  Lanigan and Malone.  WMJI Magic 105.7.  Dave, good morning. 

UNDIS:  Good morning. 

LANIGAN:  How are you? 

UNDIS:  Good.  How are you? 

LANIGAN:  Fine. 

MALONE:  See, that’s bad that he’s good.  Somebody’s waiting for something that Dave has.   

LANIGAN:  That’s right.

MALONE:  And if he’s good, that mean’s they’re not going to get it. 

THOMSON:  I.e., an organ. 

LANIGAN:  OK, what do you say to that, Dave? 

UNDIS:  I don’t know if you’ve told your audience anything about what we’re up to, so let me start it out. 

LANIGAN:  All right, let me set this whole thing up.  The group is called LifeSharers, and this is Dave Undis, who is the guy who put this group together basically, which is an organization that shares organs.  Right? 

UNDIS:  Correct.  We’re trying to encourage more people to sign donor cards.  Over 82,000 Americans are waiting for transplants right now, and about 60% of them are going to die before they get one.  And it’s all because about two-thirds of Americans haven’t, for one reason or another, gotten around to signing an organ donor card. 

MALONE:  Your organization is a little different, though, in that instead of just signing an organ donor card and letting doctors decide who gets what, your group actually shares with each other, if I understand this correctly. 

UNDIS:  Right.  Our members agree to donate when we die, but we want our organs first to go to other members.  And it’s all because we think that people who are willing to donate their organs should be first in line when it’s time to decide who gets one. 

LANIGAN:  Now, to join this organization is there any cost? 

UNDIS:  No.  It’s free.  You just go to www.lifesharers.com.  You give us your name and your address and your email address and your birthdate, and you’re done.  There’s no fee.  We welcome everybody and we turn no one away.

LANIGAN:  You have to sign a donor card then?

UNDIS:  We send everyone a donor card that they can put in their wallet.  It contains information about LifeSharers. 

LANIGAN:  Does it say that if I die that the first people you must call about my organs are LifeSharers? 

UNDIS:  Exactly. 

MALONE:  Now, how has this been accepted amongst the rest of the medical community?

UNDIS:  We haven’t got as much support from the medical community as we had hoped, but we’re still a small organization and as we grow I expect that they’ll get on board. 

LANIGAN:  What about if you die?  Let’s say you die, Dave.  God forbid, but your organs have to be harvested almost immediately, and there’s nobody in the organization – there’s only 820 members right now – and say nobody in the organization needs an organ.  It’s OK to give it to other people outside the organization then? 

UNDIS:  Yes, absolutely.  The last thing we want is for our organs to go to waste.  So if none of our members is a good match for it we want our organs to go to someone else. 

LANIGAN:  Are most of the members in need of an organ match? 

UNDIS:  No.  We’re now up to almost 1300 members, and we have, I think, seven members who are in need of an organ right now.  So, what we’re doing is attracting new organ donors and helping to solve the organ donation crisis. 

LANIGAN:  These are people who need organs, and there’s nobody dying.  Do you go around encouraging them to die so we can get those organs out? 

UNDIS:  No, absolutely not.  But the one thing we do know is that we’re all going to die some day.

LANIGAN:  Yes.

MALONE:  Dave, are they in any way obligated to honor that request?  Can they say “We don’t care what this LifeSharers member wants, we have a patient over here who we think needs the heart more or needs it quicker” or whatever? 

UNDIS:  Well, what we’re doing is legal and if the medical community decided to try and override an American citizen’s legal organ donation wishes they could run into some pretty serious potential legal liability and a whole lot of bad publicity.  The last thing the organ transplant community wants is [for the American people] to think they’re overriding the wishes of organ donors.  It would cause a tremendous backlash. 

MALONE:  Now they continue to say, if I understand it correctly, the medical community says “Whoever needs the organs the most, the medical conditions should determine who gets the organ, not who’s a member of a certain club.” 

UNDIS:  Well, that’s what they say, but it’s a myth that the people who are sickest get the organs first.  Most of the sickest people can’t even get on the list in the first place because they can’t afford it.  What we say is the fairest thing to do is to give organs first to the people who donate their own.  When you die you can either take your organs to the grave or you can give them to somebody else who can use them.  So if you’re not willing to even take that one small step for your fellow man, you have no right to go to the front of the list no matter how sick you are.

LANIGAN:  What if the doctors don’t decide to work with you and your organization?  The medical profession is the one who does all the transplanting.  What if the medical profession said “We don’t accept this, and we’re not going to work with you”? 

UNDIS:   Well, again, they run into some potentially serious legal liability and a lot of bad publicity.  Your organs are yours.  You have a legal right to determine who gets them, and they can’t override those wishes. 

LANIGAN:  Well what if they don’t just, they’re not overriding them, they’re just saying “We’re not going to use you”?

UNDIS:  They’re not likely to just let perfectly good organs get thrown away when you have 80,000 people waiting for them. 

LANIGAN:  Wait a minute, Dave.  They are likely to do that if there’s a lawsuit involved in this and they know they’re going to face it.  We’re already seeing doctors that are leaving the medical profession because of incredibly high rates of insurance.  Who’s to say they wouldn’t do the same thing with an organization that said “This is the way they’re gong to be donated one way or the other” and they simply say “I’m not going to get into a lawsuit about this.  I’m not going to use you.” 

UNDIS:  Again, then they’re creating a lawsuit, not avoiding one.  Because then they’ve got 80,000 people who are saying to them “You could have saved my life but you let this organ get thrown away into the ground.” 

LANIGAN:  You could do the same thing with blood.  I mean, you say “Well if you don’t donate blood then you’re not going to get any of my blood if I donate.” 

THOMPSON:  Right.

UNDIS:  Well, in the blood donation system if you do donate you get special treatment when you need blood.  And we’re trying to do the same thing for organs.

LANIGAN:  You do? 

UNDIS:  Sure you do. 

LANIGAN:  I’ve heard that, and I’m told that is a myth. 

UNDIS:  OK.  Well, I’ve heard that it’s true. 

LANIGAN:  I’ve heard the same thing you have, but I was later also told by people that’s not true at all. 

MALONE:  We’re talking to Dave from LifeSharers.  Take me through this really quickly though, so all our listeners understand it.  If I have a LifeSharers card in my wallet and I, whatever, I pass away and they check it out, who do they contact, and how do you decide again who’s going to get my organ even amongst your own group? 

UNDIS:  Your donor card instructs the transplant personnel to call LifeSharers and get a list of names of members who need your organs.  Then we ask the authorities, instead of giving it to the highest ranking person on the list, to give it to the highest ranking LifeSharers member.  And, again, this is all about encouraging organ donation.  For one reason or another, about two-thirds of Americans haven’t gotten around to doing it, and we’re giving them a better reason to do it.  The only reason you have to do it now is because it’s the right thing to do.  We’re telling people “If you give us your organs when you’re dead and you can’t use them anymore, you’ll have a better chance of getting one if you ever need one to live.” 

LANIGAN:  You guys have compatibility on these at the club?

UNDIS:  No.  We don’t have to keep track of that because the authorities are doing that already. 

LANIGAN:  I’m saying if they call LifeSharers and they find out Pete here in Saginaw needs it, then how do you find out if he’s eligible for it?  Or if his body will take it?

UNDIS:  They’re already keeping track of all of that stuff, and if there’s no match then the organ goes to someone else. 

LANIGAN:  To me, I don’t know why, but this is Orwell to me in a way.  We’re one step away from an organization that comes along that costs a great deal of money to get into, that comes up with the best organs, and gets the people the organs the quickest who need to live. 

MALONE:  I think they have that already though. 

LANIGAN:  What’s that called?

MALONE:  I think it’s called the medical system.  I have to believe that if the right guy with cash went into a hospital he might find a way to get moved up on the list. 

LANIGAN:  You think so?

MALONE:  That’s the way I think it happens. 

LANIGAN:  Do you believe that happens, Dave? 

UNDIS:  I don’t believe it happens, but a lot of people do. 

THOMPSON:  Oh I think it does.  David Crosby for one.

UNDIS:  What we’re doing is going to help combat that myth.  Because when people realize that they can move up to the top of the list just by signing a donor card that myth is going to start going away.

THOMPSON:  Mickey Mantle was another one. 

LANIGAN:  I understand if you can sign something and move up the donor list, but that means everybody else has got to be in agreement with your system, and I don’t see that happening.

UNDIS:  Well, again, your organs are yours and you have a legal right to determine who gets them.  The fact that other people don’t like what you’re doing is irrelevant. 

LANIGAN:  OK.  But why can’t I do the same thing and start a group and have specific people in it and do it the same way?

UNDIS:  Well, good luck because it’s been a whole lot of work. 

LANIGAN:  Really. 

MALONE:  Who funds you? 

UNDIS:  We get contributions from some of our members. 

MALONE:  I see.

LANIGAN:  So some of them do give you money to be part of this.

UNDIS:  We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and contributions are tax deductible to the full extent of the law. 

MALONE:  Has anyone been able to test this out yet?  Has anyone? 

UNDIS:  We have not yet had a member die in circumstances that would have permitted their organs to be recovered.  But it’s going to happen someday. 

...

LANIGAN:  So it’s not been tested yet and you’ve got around 1200 members.  Is it really growing rapidly? 

UNDIS:  Oh, yes, we’ve grown 50% in the last three weeks. 

LANIGAN:  If they want to find out more about this, how do they do it 

UNDIS:  www.lifesharers.com.  If you don’t have a computer, call us at 615-356-3918.

LANIGAN:  And you’ll put the letter in the mail, they’ll become a member of LifeSharers and you get a donor card that says basically if I do die put my organs to good use with the other members of this club.  And if I need an organ you’ll go first to those people to find one. 

UNDIS:  Exactly. 

LANIGAN:  It’s a hell of an idea.  It’s a very interesting idea.  I think there’s going to be some challenges down the road on this.  There’s just no way that’s not going to happen.  Right?

UNDIS:  Well, bring them on.

LANIGAN:  Are you a lawyer? 

UNDIS:  No, I am not.

LANIGAN:  You have lawyers?

UNDIS:  We’ve spoken to some legal people, and we’re assured that everything we’re doing is perfectly legal.

LANIGAN:  OK.  Interesting. 

THOMPSON:  All right, it’s good to talk to you this morning. 

UNDIS:  Thank you.

THOMPSON:  Look it up.  It’s on the web.  It’s right there.  It’s called LifeSharers.