kidney disease

The National Kidney Registry recently facilitated its 10,000th organ transplant from a living donor — someone who willingly gave up a kidney to a friend, family member or even a complete stranger. That includes Scott Plunket, an Albuquerque resident who received a new kidney and lease on life from a longtime friend.

Organ donations and transplants hit an all-time high in 2023, according to New Mexico Donor Services. Still, over 640 New Mexicans are sitting on a waitlist hoping to find a match before it’s too late. Donor Services, along with recipients and waitlisters themselves are undertaking efforts to get more New Mexicans with organ failure life-saving transplants.

As the U.S. prepared to detonate the first atomic bomb in New Mexico in the ’40s, the federal government sought uranium on Navajo land. Decades later,…

Studies about kidney disease in the United States have historically left out Native Americans, but a pair of researchers at the University of New Mexico…