Friday / Weekend Open Lines


The first successful organ transplant in the U.S. was performed this month in 1954 in Boston by Harvard’s Dr. Joseph Murray, who passed away just last year. He transplanted a kidney from one identical twin to another, who lived just over eight years longer. For his pioneering work on organ transplants, Dr. Murray received the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1990. Now, there are nearly 17,000 kidney transplants each year in the U.S., the most common and successful of the organ transplant procedures. Ninety-five percent of patients live at least one year after these operations. More than 94,000 people are on waiting lists to receive a transplanted kidney. You can find more facts about America’s people, places and economy from the American Community Survey at <www.census.gov>.