In Health Watch:Tens of thousands of Americans are on the nation's orgIn Health Watch:Tens of thousands of Americans are on the nation's organ transplant waiting list.Many need a new liver.Now, a new study looks at whether race or gender plays a role in who gets a liver.Alissa Krinsky explains.Alice Jones Mayer remembers the day she found out she had liver failure and needed a transplant.Alice Jones Mayer says, 'My initial question was, 'Well, how long do you think I'll have to wait,' and 'Do you think I'll live long enough to get a liver.''She got a new liver in ten weeks...but when she needed a second liver years later... She had to wait - getting sicker every day - for more than a year and a half...Doctor Cynthia Moylan of duke university medical center - and her colleagues - decided to look at the nation's liver transplant allocation system, retooled in 2002 to eliminate subjectivity from the process - a problem in the old system.Dr. Cynthia Moylan, Duke University Medical Center, says, 'Many times we found that the process was biased by different physicians assessing a patient's liver disease differently.'At issue: has the current, more objective methodology eliminated race and gender disparities in liver allocation?Previously, black and female patients were disadvantaged in the process.Dr. Moylan says, 'waiting longer and dying more quickly before receiving a liver organ offer.'The study appears this week in JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association.It examined the effects of the meld score system - "model for end-stage liver disease".Dr. Moylan says, 'With the use of the MELD score allocation system, we found that that racial inequity has been greatly reduced."Progress there, but not with gender disparity. Women still are less likely to receive a transplant and more likely to die than men.Dr. Moylan says, "It is important that we make sure that these livers are allocated fairly, and that we're using the correct and best, most equitable system to do that."Because a new liver can mean a new life.Alice Jones Mayer says, "I actually feel great. I feel that I've crossed some threshold and I feel like I have an opportunity to live a full life."A full life because she got the liver she needed. Alissa Krinsky, the JAMA Report.For more information about this study you can log on to www.jama.com.