Vision 1 year after gene therapy for Leber's congenital amaurosis.

To the Editor: The discussion of donor assessment by Kotton et al. suggests that exclusion criteria from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (Table 3 of the article) are used to reduce the likelihood of transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In fact, the CDC’s criteria do not have an exclusionary function but define a group of donors considered to have a high risk for transmission of HIV. The policy of the United Network for Organ Sharing does stipulate that transplantation centers must disclose this organ-specific information to potential recipients at the time the organ is offered, presumably during a discussion of informed consent.1 The CDC’s criteria were devised in 19942 in an effort to exclude donors with an unacceptably high risk of transmitting HIV. Fifteen years later, rising waiting-list mortality, improved prospective detection of infectious agents with nucleic acid testing, growing uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of the criteria, and the problem of promoting social bias against homosexual men have cast doubt on the importance of the criteria.3