LONDON — Britain's transplant authority said Saturday thatit was investigating several hundred thousand errors in its organ donorlist stretching back about a decade.
The National Health ServiceBlood and Transplant organization said a proportion of its 14million-strong organ donor list has been affected by technical errorssince 1999 — and that a small group of people may have had organsremoved without proper authorization as a result.
The programmingerror meant that, for example, people who wanted to donate organs suchas their lungs or their skin were incorrectly identified as people whowanted to donate their corneas or heart.
The Sunday Telegraphnewspaper said the glitch affected about 800,000 people — 45 of whomhave since died and donated organs. Just under half of those arethought to have made donations based on the erroneous data, the papersaid.