U.S. asks court to reconsider ruling on bone marrow donations

The Obama administration has asked a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling that most bone marrow donors can be compensated for providing life-saving marrow cells harvested from their bloodstreams.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously on Dec. 1 that bone marrow filtered from a donor’s blood was a blood part, not an organ part, and could be legally sold.

But in a petition for rehearing by a full 11-judge panel of the court, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder, Jr., said the three-judge panel had ignored the clear intent of Congress to prevent money from influencing donation decisions.

Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act in 1984, when donors had to endure a painful surgical extraction of their marrow through needles inserted into the hip bones. Lawmakers amended the law in 2005, after the less invasive method of taking marrow cells from the blood was developed, but did not exempt such donations from the statute, Holder said in the petition filed with the San Francisco-based court on Tuesday.

Jeff Rowes, the Institute for Justice lawyer who successfully argued the case for compensation on behalf of a group of cancer patients, a transplant surgeon and the California group MoreMarrowDonors.org, said he doubted that the 9th Circuit would grant a rehearing because the three-judge opinion was unanimous and doesn’t conflict with other case law.

MoreMarrowDonors.org wants to begin a pilot project to attract new members to a national bone marrow registry by offering up to $3,000 in scholarships, housing payments or charitable donations to volunteers whose bone marrow is a promising match for one of the thousands waiting for transplants.

The 9th Circuit interpretation applies to its nine-state jurisdiction, but because it is the only federal appeals court to have ruled on the question, its judgment could guide future decisions nationwide.

carol.williams@latimes.com