January 19, 2001
HHS Appoints Members of Organ Transplant Advisory Committee
Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna E. Shalala Jan. 12 announced the appointment of 20 members to the Secretary's new Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation. The committee will advise the Secretary on all aspects of organ procurement, allocation and transplantation, including independent review and advice on organ allocation policies developed by the nation's transplantation network.
The advisory committee was created in the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) final rule of 1999 and recommended by the Institute of Medicine Report to Congress in 1998. It will be chaired by Nancy L. Ascher, M.D., Ph.D., liver transplant surgeon and professor at the Department of Surgery, University of California at San Francisco. The committee is expected to meet three times a year. Other members of the committee are:
Gail Agrawal, J.D., M.P.H., associate professor of law, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law;
Denise Y. Alveranga, M.D., Lifelink Transplant Institute, Tampa, Fla.;
Dan W. Brock, Ph.D., professor, Brown University;
Margaret B. Coolican, M.S., R.N., C.D.E., Donor Family Services Coordinator, NorthEast Organ Procurement Organization, Hartford, Conn.;
Paige Cottigham-Streater, J.D., executive director, The Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs, Washington, D.C.;
Francis L. Delmonico, M.D., professor of surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital;
Robert D. Gibbons, Ph.D., director, Center for Health Statistics, Professor of Biostatistics, University of Illinois at Chicago;
Bartley P. Griffith, M.D., vice chair, Department of Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine;
William Harmon, M.D., nephrologist, Children's Hospital, Boston;
J. Harold Helderman, M.D., F.A.C.P., medical director, renal transplantation, Vanderbilt Transplant Center, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Vanderbilt University Medical School;
Lawrence G. Hunsicker, M.D., medical director of organ transplantation, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics;
Roger R. Luna, Jr., area director, Cardiopulmonary and Radiology Departments, McAllen Medical Center, McAllen, Texas;
Edgar Milford, M.D., director of the Tissue Typing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital;
Howard Nathan, M.P.H., president and CEO, Gift of Life Donor Program, Philadelphia, Pa.;
Mary Ann Palumbi, R.N., CCTC senior director, Allegheny General Hospital Transplantation Services, Pittsburgh, Pa.;
J. Thomas Rosenthal, M.D., director and provost, University of Los Angeles Medical Group, professor of urology, UCLA School of Medicine;
Flora Solarz, B.A., M.P.S., senior management consultant, New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, New York, N.Y.;
Donald M. Stablein, Ph.D., president/biostatistician, EMMES Corporation, Potomac, Md.; and
James B. Young, M.D., head, Section of Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
