CHICAGO -- Citing the growing need for transplantable organs, the largest U.S. doctors group called on Tuesday for a study that would pay the families of donors some modest compensation, such as helping to cover funeral expenses.

The goal would be to find out if incentives increase the rate of organ donations, and possibly save the lives of the 16 Americans who die each day waiting for a healthy organ.

"Every life we can save, and every life that needlessly goes away because an organ goes into the grave doesn't make much sense," said Dr. Bruce Scott, a member of the board of trustees of the American Medical Association.

The AMA's House of Delegates, meeting in Chicago, approved a resolution urging that a study be conducted of financial incentives for donors. A small-scale, government-funded study might be undertaken by an organ procurement organization.

The AMA, which represents less than one-third of the nation's 900,000 doctors, carries strong influence in Washington.

The group did not endorse paying for organ donations, but was "simply recommending that this concept be studied," said Dr. Frank Riddick, chairman of the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs.

A council committee had voted to oppose the study idea, but the 300-member House of Delegates decided by voice vote to adopt the resolution. Committee members worried that paying donors would set a bad precedent for what has been a strictly voluntary and altruistic practice, and could pave the way to a marketplace for organs.

But Scott said the doctors group said any payment should be modest -- somewhere in the area of $300 to $1,000 -- enough, for instance, to help cover funeral expenses or the travel expenses of the donor family.

"Part of our goal is that organ donation remains an altruistic event and not a cash receipt event," Scott told Reuters.

"The number of people on the transplant list has gone up significantly over the last 10 years (to 75,000 people), but the number of organs procured has not gone up significantly," he said. "We have the technology, we have the advances in science, in medicine and in surgery to transplant virtually all of those people if we simply had the organs. Could we save the 16 people a day who needlessly die because of the lack of an organ? Probably not all of them, but it's a shame to let any of them die simply because we don't have the organs for them."