MYTH A: If I sign a donor card, register, or indicate my wishes on a driver’s license, my choice to donate will be honored.

FACT: It is essential that your family know your wishes. In some states, if your family does not know your intent, donation may not occur EVEN IF you have registered or have a donor card. Tell them and share why this is important to you!

MYTH B: I am too old to donate organs and tissue.

FACT: Age limits for organ donation no longer exist. Newborns through the elderly can donate. Each situation is evaluated individually.

MYTH C: My religion does not allow organ and tissue donation.

FACT: All major religions support the decision to donate, considering it a generous act that is the individual's choice. (Read about various religious viewpoints.)

MYTH D: I cannot donate because I have cancer.

FACT: You may be able to donate organs. With recent advances in transplantation, more people than ever can donate. If the cancer is not blood-borne or has not progressed to the eye, cornea donation is an option. Even if it is a blood-borne cancer or it has progressed to the eye, corneas may still be donated for research purposes.

MYTH E: If doctors know I want to be a donor, they won’t try to save my life.

FACT: There is no conflict between saving lives and organ donation. Medical professionals are required by law and medical oath to do everything they can to save your life. Doctors who work to save your life are not the same doctors involved with organ donation. Only after every attempt has been made to save your life and you are declared dead, will donation be considered.

MYTH F: If I am an organ donor, my family will have to pay for the procedure.

FACT: A donor’s family is never charged for donation.

MYTH G: They might take my organs before I am really dead.

FACT: Organ donation is only accepted following official declaration of death by a doctor NOT involved in transplantation. In order to donate organs, a patient must be declared dead.

MYTH H: Wealthy people jump ahead on the waiting list by purchasing needed organs and tissue.

FACT: In 1984 the National Organ Transplant Act prohibited the sale of human organs in the United States.

MYTH I: Celebrities or people with the right connections can jump ahead of ordinary people on the waiting list.

FACT: When a person is on the waiting list for an organ, what matters is the severity of the illness, the length time on the wait list, blood type of the person waiting and other important medical details, not connections or celebrity status.

MYTH J: I cannot be a donor because I would like an open casket funeral.

FACT: Surgical techniques are used to retrieve organs and tissues, and all incisions are closed. The body is treated with dignity and respect. No one but the family will know that donation took place.