. morning. welcome to "viewpoint." i'm pat lawson muse. every year in this country people die waiting for organ transplants. any one of us could be on that list. my guest is the professor of surgery at university's college of medicine. he's also the founder of the national organ program.

and we have two people who are familiar with organ transplants. there are 1600 people waiting here for all kinds of organs. of both groups. half are minorities. >> we have a predid i liks for high blood pressure and diabetes. >> why are we so disproportionately affected in the face of a barrage of information, campaigns, education efforts, beatings from our doctors and family members about changing our diets, lifestyles? >> loving yourself and taking care yourself is what we preach

and that's not what we practice, somehow we have to get those closer together so we actually walk the walk. rg list still only 20% are donors. how much progress are you making in getting those numbers up? >> we've come a long way. for example, i can tell you we per million were african-american. the problem is we're so disproportionately zpkcafflicte. our campaign is to get it up to 40%. that's asking a lot, but something we need to do because it will save live. >> david, i want to go to you and alyssa i'll come to you

next. david, you are a recipient of a transplant. you underwent two liver tran plants. >> in the beginning before my first transplant, i was diagnosed with a disease which affects the bile ducts within the liver and after being diagnosed with that, i went on the waiting list for about 13 months before an organ became available for me, and going through that experience made me -- i had no idea of organ and transplant donation at that time, but that saved my life when i received that organ, however, the disease did not necessarily go away. i actually had a total removal of the large intestines in order to get rid of the disease but the disease didn't go away and it attacked me again and i had to have another liver transplant

in september of 2008. and since then, i have been living probably a good life, even though i have my little ups and downs, but it's wonderful actually to be here on earth to share the joy and also to be able to educate people about organ and tissue donation. so it's a pleasure being here. >> you are 65 now. >> i'm 65. >> so you've been through it twice and you've made it -- you look great. >> okay. >> how do you feel? >> i feel great right now. i feel very good, and i'm living a productive life. i'm involved in quite a few things, i would rather be active instead of sitting home, so right now, i feel very good. >> and what did doctors say to you about your prognosis? >> my prognosis is very good at this point. i do -- we do what you call every three months get my blood work done. i do a yearly exam by the transplant surgeons and everything seems to be good

right now. >> you are a success story. >> i guess so. >> we all guess so. we're going to take a break, and come back and we're going to talk to alyssa who is a donor sister as we continue our conversation this morning here on viewpoint. stay with us. ring ring!... progresso! it's ok that your soup tastes like my homemade. it's our slow simmered vegetables and tender white meat icken. apology accepted. i'm watching you soup people.

make it progresso or make it yourself some people think vegetables are boring. but with green giant's delicious seasonings and blends, we just may change their minds. ho ho ho green giant!

welcome back to "viewpoint." we're talking about organ donation and transplantation. and alyssa hughley, your brother was an organ donor. he's now deceased. >> my brother came home very

excited to share his license and walk me through it as if i had never seen a driver's license before and it was unremarkable event until he pointed out the heart on his drivers license and said i've got the heart. you can see i'm an organ donor and i immediately stopped him in his tracks and said you are an organ donor as if he had committed some kind of sin, and his response was very practical and simple. he said, yeah, i'm not going to need them when i'm dead which you would expect from a 16-year-old, but it was a profound statement. i had no idea how quickly those words were going to come back and be necessary in my family but what he had done right then was advanced planning and he had shared his advanced plan with a family member. all at the age of 16. >> wow.

>> and i thank him for that. i thank him for the conversation that we had. it wasn't something that went further although the next time came around to renew my license, i did think about what he said and i changed my designation to be an organ donor as well. >> you made the decision before your brother died? >> i did make the decision before he died but did not really look at the advocacy until how big of an issue it was until my brother passed away. five years later at the age of 21, my brother was a student in richmond, living and working, and he had a roommate, and they had had the opportunity to just meet in passi passing a former t who no longer attended this university and we didn't know the student was sick. he suffered what was later diagnosed paranoid scis owe

frein i can't. this individual came to their house one night with a weapon which he purchased illegally. the roommate describes staring at the barrel of a gun and with that the gentleman saying are you ready to walk with jesus? he wrestled this person out of the apartment. he ran to my brother in the other room and he found my brother on the floor. so my family experienced that fated call in the middle of the night. we were in durham, north carolina. my brother was in richmond from 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m., we drove to virginia medical college to find my brother alone in an icu and at the time we did not know that he had already been declared brain dead or he was in the process of being declared brain dead. >> so after that, before that,

your brother made the decision, but he donated what? >> he donated two kidneys, liver, and a double lung. there was a double lung transplant as well. i was liked talk to talk about the kidneys right now because it is a special story. one reason i do this is because individuals share their story, testimony. so many african-americans are suffering from kidney failure, they may be on dialysis because of advanced diabetes or because of their obesity, their hypertension. well, in my church in north carolina, st. joseph's ame, a woman stand up one sunday and said pray for me, i'm waiting for a kidney and i do hope one comes in time. her name was mary lyons. some other time in first baptist

church, in my aunt's church, a woman stood up with a similar testimony. said pray me i'm waiting for a kidney. >> they had a tremendous impact on you. >> they had a tremendous impact. our ability to remember this in the face of tragedy when we were with the organ procurement officer who said would you please consider donating your brother's organs. he was an athlete. but he had a bullet lodged in his brain. >> it's a compelling story. alyssa, thank you so much for telling us that story and we'll continue our talk about organ doe nation right after this.

welcome back, we're talking about organ donation. dr. clive callender. you have said that d.c. has the most successful conversion rate in the country. explain that. >> in the district of columbia which has the highest incidence by the way, we also have the most successful organ donor conversion of the minority population, especially african-americans and some of this related is what the washington regional community has done. the pioneering efforts that began in 1978 have been able to use the black community as a model to other ethnic minority groups and as a consequence minorities now donate in excess of what the population is. minorities are 25% of the

population, but couldn't city tut 30% of the donations. >> some of it do with the cultural beliefs you really should keep all of your organs. how is that changing and how is the law changing? >> we've been very fortunate for example. if you register to be a donor, that bkses a legitimate legal act and even if your family disagrees with you, they cannot over turn it. if you go to be a donor.org and you say i want to be a donor and it's registered, then the transplant community knows about it and then it can be done. as a consequence we're having more black donors than we've ever had before, but it's just so we're so disproportionately afflicted, but we need more. >> david, did you consider being an organ donor before you became

one in need of it? >> did i understand the real significance at that time but, no, i did it. >> did you understand what you wanted to donate or did you signed your drivers license? >> no, just signed the drivers license. made an indication for it. >> is it more difficult to get people to become living donors than deceased donors? >> we do have much more difficulty getting live donors. they have to be healthy and want to do it. those two are the biggest obstacles. >> alyssa, the decision wasn't difficult for you. but you've now engaged in -- set out on a campaign, it sounds like, really to win converts, to convince others that it is okay to donate while you are living and certainly the right thing to do to donate once you are deceased? >> definitely.

i've really appreciated the time i've had. i've first approached washington regional transplant community in 2011, although i had kind of been doing things anyway, but i've had the opportunity to volunteer from health fairs to churches, to larger events, and now that i'm a member of the community outreach individualry -- advisory council, it's been a wonderful opportunity. with 80% of the individuals waiting for a kidney and more than half of those being people of color, making the decision to become a donor is a family kind of issue. it's not that i'm donating somewhere out there. although my brother did become a donor to two individuals that we did not know, because of directed doe narks women who literally stood up and gave their testimony in the church who were suffering from kidney failure and were waiting for an

organ for transplant in the face of that horrible tragedy, we found that he was a match for each of them and they each received kidneys because we were knowledgeable, because we knew that they were waiting, because he was willing to give. >> and you have not only convinced others, you've convinced everybody in your family? >> we've convinced a great number of individuals in our family, definitely. my mother got the idea maybe four or five years ago as we were really ramping up because she is -- she sat on the board at care aligner donor services which is the opo in north carolina. she's like we're going to be make a presentation to our family. we've been working and advocating, we want to make sure people that folks at home, people in the williams-hughley family will know. we want to make the most of sharing this issue and helping individuals make that

life-saving choice to be a donor after they pass away and don't need the organs anymore. >> all right. we'll continue our talk about organ donation in just a minute.

welcome back. doctor, the minority donation rate in the hispanic community. >> it's rising just as rapidly as it is in the african-american community. >> same health issues? >> same health issues. we have more hypertension than they do, but they have a whole lot of diabetes and both communities have much more than the caucasian or white population. >> and kidneys are still the main organ. >> kidney is number one by far and the need is so great, for example, that we now have a new site at george washington university and the goal is to get more donors in the district of columbia because we want to

get more transplants but we need more donors and we need more african-american donors and more latino-hispanic donors. the goal is to get the message out in the community. take advantage of the holiday season. talk about donation at thanksgiving, at christmas, just as her family did. and get people to recognize it, the people that we're saving are our ownselves. >> david, your wife is now a donor. >> yes. >> did she become a donor after your transplant? >> yes, yes. >> first once or second. >> first one. >> is it something you've talked about with your family? >> certain ones because certain ones also have these other myths that has been mentioned. so you pick and choose those individuals that you know that will be receptive to the message. >> alyssa changing lifestyles, eating healthier, exercising all those things, i'm sure you are talking about, but when you talk

to people, what kind of response do you get from them about, you know, how tough it is. >> i get the gamut of responses. it's nice to be on the one on one setting when you can talk to individuals one on one. my first question is so what's holding you back right now, if you were to make that decision today what do you feel is the main thing you think keeping you from that so that i can get them to at least arctic cue lat what their primary myth is that's holding them back. because i've been through the process, because i've had a loved one pass away, because i was there in the hospital, i can explain to them what that process is like. i can help them understand that the team that works so hard to take care of my brother, and i can say that with all honest conviction because i was there as they did the challenges, when they took him off the respira respirator, when they put him back on, there's a respiration technologist that i will always

think fondly of because she was so caring and generous with our family. i can explain to them that this is the team carefully and lovingly goes through the recovery efforts to help them, the transplant ations that are going to take place. and the fact that at donor dog -- donor.org. you can good through your dmv, if you don't want that on your license, if the heart make you uncomfortable. >> doctor, what's the one thing they need to hear how to save their kid snis? >> you need to get your blood pressure checked after the age of 12. second thing, you need to get a urine test, and if your urine

shows you have protein, then and your doctor need to work on how to prevent kidney failure. pushing back from the table, losing weight, exercising 30 minutes a day, five days a week. those are things that will help save your life. one you know, one of the biggest problems is we as african-americans race from the cradle to the grave. we want to lose that race and we can lose it by adopting healthy lifestyles. love yourself. take care of yourself. >> david stephenson who is a liver transplant and alyssa hughley. thank you for being with us. thank you for being with us. i'm pat lawson muse.

this is "viewpoint." stay with us for news 4 today.

coming home busy travellers are headed back from a long holiday weekend but especially frustrating for one group of travellers. >> a warm up under way as we take a live look outside. soak in the sun while you can when it comes up. not going last for long. >> what we're learning about what led up to a local student's thanksgiving day murder. >> good morning and welcome to "news4 today". i'm adam tuss. >> i'm angie goff. >> right now we're watching the skies and roads on one of the busiest travel days of the year. more of you will be flying today than any other day of the year. now according to aaa 46 million americans are traveling this weekend. that'she