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The federal government should pay up to $5,000 as an incentive for people to donate the organs of deceased relatives, according to a group led by a University of Pittsburgh researcher.

The proposal, circulated in a letter sent to members of Congress this week, aims to help the estimated 6,000 Americans who die each year waiting for hearts, livers and kidneys, said Harold Kyriazi, a Pitt neurobiology researcher who is leading the effort.

Kyriazi, whose group includes about two dozen scholars, transplant surgeons, religious leaders and organ donation experts, said the payment would be nothing more than a token of thanks for helping to save another life. A 1984 federal law bans the sale of organs, but the group wants Congress to study whether a cash incentive would boost organ donations.

More than 80,000 people are on transplant waiting lists, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the private agency that allocates donated organs nationwide.

"It's just human nature that if you're getting something, you should give something in return," Kyriazi said Thursday. "I wouldn't feel right to just ask for an organ. I would feel like a beggar. I would like to offer some kind of compensation as a way of saying thanks and keeping it at an even exchange level."

The proposal is the latest attempt to use money as a way to deepen the shallow pool of prospective donors. The American Medical Association in late 2001 said it intended to study whether it would support compensating donors' families. Perhaps most significantly, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons has said modest compensation would not be unethical.

At least one medical ethicist disagrees, calling the plan a bad solution that fuels the idea that "If you can pay for it, you can get it."

"It immediately says 'Gee, how much money is someone else's life worth?'" said Dr. Lawrence J. Schneiderman, a medical ethicist at the University of California, San Diego. "Anytime that you say we are going to give you money to do something, it brings it into the commercial area in that we are trying to get people to do something for the sake of something else. It just encourages people to make a deal that's financially rewarding rather than 'this is life and death' and showing respect for the process of health care."

There has never been a study conducted to determine the effect of compensating people for donating the organs of loved ones, said Dr. John Fung, chief of transplantation surgery at Pitt's Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute.

"I suspect that it would have an impact, but I don't know, so it's definitely worth exploring," he said.

The plan's supporters include some relatives of patients who died waiting for organ donors. Rosemary Woods of Scott Township said financial incentives could have helped find a heart and liver for her son, Jonathan. The brown-eyed boy died on March 30, 1998, one day before his 10th birthday, because doctors couldn't find suitable organs.

"I firmly believe that my son's life may have been saved if anything could have been offered to a family suffering with the burden of grief," Woods said. "I think a monetary reward would definitely encourage families to give donation a closer look. Unfortunately, my Jon didn't have that chance."

To avoid giving the wrong impression, the group's plan involves a flat fee, regardless of the donor's age or number of usable organs or tissue. The money would be paid to the donor's family even if doctors are unable to use the organs.

"We want to get away from the idea of haggling," said Alexander Tabarrok, a group member and professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

Relatives would likely be approached about the incentive after the potential donor dies. The group said the fee should not be less than $3,000, an amount that would help pay for the donor's funeral.

Officials at the Center for Organ Recovery and Education in Pittsburgh, the local organ soliciting agency, say the incentive could boost the number of potential donors. Only about half of those who are asked agree to donate, said spokeswoman Pat Kornick. Last year, 157 out of 311 medically eligible people donated organs locally, Kornick said.

Kyriazi said the cost of paying relatives, which the group estimates could be around $25 million a year, could be covered with money saved from medical treatment required for sick patients on organ waiting lists.

"It will end up saving money to society because right now people who need kidneys are undergoing extensive dialysis that is very costly," he said.

Kyriazi said he believes a reward would help people overcome one of the top reasons why relatives often say no to donation -- the grief caused by the thought of their relatives being disfigured.

"People understand money on a gut level, too," he said. "It would be a way of overcoming the gut level revulsion of having your loved ones cut open."

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