Demand for organ transplantation has doubled since 1988 and is growing by 15 percent per year. Worldwide, more than 147,000 people are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant. But only about 40,000 organ transplants are performed each year. As a result, one in five patients waiting for a donor organ will die before a transplant can be arranged. In the United States, one person dies every three hours while waiting for an organ transplant. This situation requires a big change in public opinion to create more positive attitudes about organ donation. Organ transplantation, which can save several lives after one has been lost, «strikes an especially sensitive chord in the human psyche», said one of the doctors.

Transplant doctors at the conference opposed all forms of commerce in organs for transplant and made clear that clandestine transplant would be impossible because of the complexity of the surgeries involved and the large number of medical professionals necessary for organ removal and implantation and because most organs are usable only a few hours after extraction. All these factors make organ theft and clandestine transplantation impossible, they said.

The Transplantation Society conference also considered advances in the transplantation of animal
organs to humans, a technique which offers great potential for relieving organ shortages in the next
century.

Dr. Josep Lloveras, president of the Catalan Transplantation Society, said, «I am particularly pleased
that the Congress is taking place in Spain, a country known for its expertise in organ procurement.»
Spain has the highest rate of organ donation in the world: 27 donors per every million people.

PART ONE: READING COMPREHENSION

1. Answer the following questions without copying from the text.

a) What are the basic problems in organ transplantation today?

b) Why, according to the text, is it very improbable that people could do business with human organs?

c) What is the attitude about organ donation in Spain as compared to other places in the world?

  PART TWO: WRITING
Choose ONE. Write about either 1 or 2.

Option A: You have decided to donate your organs to hospitals when you die. Write a letter addressed to your family asking them to respect your decision and telling them why you want to do so. Do not use your real name.

Option B: You have been invited to speak at the International Congress of the Transplantation Society. You want to persuade the participants that the best way to solve the problem is to use animal organs for transplantation. Write your speech explaining why you think this method is a better idea than human donation.

3. Vocabulary

Explain next words in English, write the phonetics and also an example: physician, surgery, theft.