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BRUSSELS - The European Union's health chief will unveil plans later today to increase organ donations and transplants amid a row over a Dutch reality TV show in which a dying woman is due to select a recipient for her kidneys.
Dutch broadcaster BNN said it would broadcast The Big Donorshow on Friday during which a 37-year-old woman will choose one of three people with kidney problems, despite calls from the government for the programme to be scrapped.
On Wednesday, EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou will publish a new strategy to combat a shortage of donated organs, which figures show contributes to 10 deaths a day in the 27-nation bloc.
While acknowledging that Friday's Dutch show highlighted the urgency of the Commission plan, Kyprianou's spokesman said the commissioner did not favour such a programme.
"It seems in rather bad taste to do a reality TV show on something like this which is after all a serious issue. On Wednesday we will put forward real proposals on how to improve the situation," spokesman Philip Tod said.
Dutch Education and Culture Minister Ronald Plasterk, a professor of molecular biology and former chief of the Dutch Cancer Institute, said: "The intention of the programme to get more attention for organ donation may be laudable. However, based on the information I now have, the programme appears to me to be inappropriate and unethical because it is a competition."
According to Tod, 40,000 patients are waiting for an organ transplant across the EU. The mortality rate while waiting for a heart, liver or lung transplant is between 15 and 30 per cent.
The Commission is expected to focus on the importance of Europeans' carrying organ donor cards along with better cooperation and harmonisation of donor policies at EU level.
"The paper will outline common EU standards on the quality and safety of organ donations and transplants, which could secure a sufficient and safe supply or organs," a Commission official said, citing the paper, planned well before the furore over the programme.
The paper will also propose other ways to increase organ availability such as creating organ transplant coordinators in hospitals and expanding the use of living donors.
The EU executive will also issue an opinion poll on Europeans' attitudes towards organ donation and transplantation.
The Eurobarometer survey is also expected to highlight a big gap between an acceptance of organ donation cards and the take-up of such cards in the EU.
In the Dutch show, the donor will choose the recipient of her kidneys based on the contestants' history, profile and conversations with their families and friends.
Viewers will be able to send text messages advising her during the 80-minute show. The ruling coalition Christian Democrat (CDA) party and the conservative Christian Union have called the show "wretched" and unethical.
BNN says it wants to highlight the difficulties faced by kidney sufferers in getting donor organs as a tribute to the station's founder, Bart de Graaff, who died of kidney failure five years ago, despite several transplants.
The Netherlands is a pioneer of reality shows such as Big Brother.
- REUTERS
