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New Facebook feature encourages organ donation
The organ donation community is applauding Facebook’s announcement Tuesday that it will allow its 900 million members to share their donor status with friends and family, and to link to state databases where people in the USA can register online to officially become donors.
“This is great news. It has the potential to be one of the biggest campaigns to increase donor designation that we’ve ever seen,” said John Green, community relations director for the Gift of Life Donor Program, based in Philadelphia.
“It’s absolutely critical at this time when online communication and social media are really the way people are communicating,” said Julia Rivera, director of communications for the New York Organ Donor Network.
In an interview on Good Morning America Tuesday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the organ donation initiative was inspired by disasters such as last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the social network’s role in keeping people connected.
Zuckerberg also cited his girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, who is studying to become a pediatrician. “Our dinner conversations are often about Facebook and kids, and the kids that she’s meeting,” he said. “She’ll see them getting sicker, then, all of a sudden, an organ becomes available, and she comes home and her face is all lit up because someone’s life is going to be better because of this.”
sileceal
May 2nd, 2012
In my increasingly cynical world, given FB’s increasingly dubious reputation, I wonder about the up-front total sincereity of the “outreach”. ‘Guess I’ve read too many articles recently about how marking “organ donor” on a driver’s license can basically doom an individual to harvesting even before that individual is declared legally dead, physiologically and brain dead. I hate being cynical.
Sapper Chris
May 2nd, 2012
Aaaaaand what keeps someone from putting up a page with that option checked for someone who say, like me, isn’t on facebook and absolutely won’t donate any organs to anyone? How are they ensuring the donation opted-in folks are in fact, willing to donate and not some false page? I don’t even donate blood, so having some internet entity that has a demonstrated problem with fake profiles setting up a page on my behalf to harvest my organs seems at least plausible. Maybe I’m paranoid, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t actually out to get me……
Printboy
May 2nd, 2012
I have an old Wurlitzer they can have
Zonga
May 2nd, 2012
You don’t have to die to help transplant patients.
If you want to help while you’re alive and kicking lib-lab-progressive azz, donate some of the platelets in your blood. Check out the the Red Cross.
Folks recovering from organ transplant, and some on chemotherapy need a fair amount of platelets.
There are not enough platelet donors.
http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/types-donations/platelet-donation
hanoverfist
May 2nd, 2012
You really dont want MY kidneys (or liver for that matter);-)
RosalindJ
May 2nd, 2012
I’ll keep my wishes private, TYVM. My family can speak for me when I’m good and dead but still in a donation-friendly state, not “mostly-dead all day”.
Organ donation does a lot of good. It’s also a huge business, which should be taken into consideration about how to make your wishes known.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204603004577269910906351598.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
Zonga
May 2nd, 2012
Rosalindj,
That was a very informative article. Chilling to think organ donors suffer pain during harvesting.
Moxie Man
May 2nd, 2012
Anybody who is on Facebook (or Google +) has already donated every bit of information about their personal life to anyone who wants it.
I leave comments here and on some sports web sites. The only people who would want anything from me are probably wearing white coats.
Moxie Man
May 2nd, 2012
“They’re coming to take me away, ho, ho, hee, hee, haa, haa …”
Buck O'fama
May 2nd, 2012
Unless it’s a family member who needs it, I’m not donating my organs to any stranger. Now, if they wish to purchase them upon my death, that’s another matter.
Do the doctors who perform these surgeries with donated organs do them for free? Not at all. So, why should I give them free spare parts?
I know it sounds cold and heartless, but, that’s the way I feel. Once you donate your organs, you have little or no say-so who receives them.
Corona
May 2nd, 2012
Thank you for donating your liver and eyeballs on Facebook. A Chinese surgery bus is on it’s way to your location.
Wyatt, Insensitive Jerk
May 2nd, 2012
Can I donate someone else’s organs? I know some progressives who would be likely candidates – although they seem to be breathing, walking and talking, I’m sure they are brain dead.
Zonga
May 2nd, 2012
I expect the DHHS will issue a regulation requiring organ donation under Obamacare.
TooMuchTime
May 2nd, 2012
♪♫
I left my lungs, in San Franciso.
I left my brain, in old St. Lou.
My liver and kidneys,
Have gone on to Sydney,
But I’m sendin’ my heart to you!
♪♫
Rides A Pale Horse
May 2nd, 2012
“Please don’t bury me”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lj9dvXzDgQ&feature=related
Woke up this morning
Put on my slippers
Walked in the kitchen and died
And oh what a feeling!
When my soul
Went thru the ceiling
And on up into heaven I did ride
When I got there they did say
John, it happened this way
You slipped upon the floor
And hit your head
And all the angels say
Just before you passed away
These were the very last words
That you said:
Chorus:
Please don’t bury me
Down in that cold cold ground
No, I’d druther have “em” cut me up
And pass me all around
Throw my brain in a hurricane
And the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don’t mind the size
Give my stomach to Milwaukee
If they run out of beer
Put my socks in a cedar box
Just get “em” out of here
Venus de Milo can have my arms
Look out! I’ve got your nose
Sell my heart to the junkman
And give my love to Rose
Repeat Chorus
Give my feet to the footloose
Careless, fancy free
Give my knees to the needy
Don’t pull that stuff on me
Hand me down my walking cane
It’s a sin to tell a lie
Send my mouth way down south
And kiss my ass goodbye
Jayne
May 2nd, 2012
I’m keeping my parts unless I know of someone worthy of them. The whole thing seems creepy otherwise. I guess if I was on the needing end I would feel differently. Now that I think about it, my dislike of organ donation began when the state started pushing it with driver license renewal – the state taking an interest in what I do with my body – that’s what is creepy and off putting. Otherwise, I’d have a different attitude.