Facebook button triggers tidal wave of human organs Thousands of Facebook users packed with fresh, reusable organs have signed up to the organ donor lists in the US and the UK. The NHS saw 850 direct signups through Facebook in the 24 hours since the option went live, and noticed a spike in website donor sign-ups too. The Donate Life San Diego branch posted a 1400% increase in …
It's likely you're right but it seems pretty easy already. They ask me every time I'm at the DMV regardless of why I'm there, which is usually twice a year, and they don't even bother to notice that box is already checked on my drivers license. Perhaps its also that FB also applies to passengers, cyclists and pedestrians as well and isn't limited to just drivers. Given the way people drive around here, I'm always a bit surprised there is a donor shortage, well except for the ones who play beat the train across the crossing as there's probably little left worth donating.
I work with ophthalmologists who perform cornea transplants and I've met patients who have had them done. I don't have an FB account and normally don't think very highly of the company, but for this I give them a thumbs up. If it gets more people to sign up as organ and tissue donors, it will be incredibly worthwhile.
It doesn't have to be - thanks to a fairly recent law it's now opt out in at least Finland. And no, the relatives don't have anything to say about it unless they are prepared to testify that the potential donor did object to being a donor when alive. Not that it's really enforced at the moment (the relatives still have a veto in practice but only because it's not a good idea to confront them in such delicate issues and situations).
"Hope they can ramp up blood donors too - I want to cry when I see so few people at my local sessions."
Perhaps if they removed the policy of excluding people who've had sexual relations with someone of the same sex, regardless of how many years ago it was, they might get more donors
Reducing the time between donations might bloody help, too. Your body recovers from a blood donation within 4 - 6 weeks usually, so many countries limit it to 8 weeks between donations to be on the safe side. Here, we make it 12 weeks, which is far too long. No wonder you're short on blood supplies when a punter can only donate 4 pints a year!
It was only 3 times a year up until a few weeks ago. I just got an email from the Blood Transfusion Service to tell me I can now go for an extra donation per year. Weirdly, in the 90s, it was safe in the Midlands when they were separate regional services, but not anywhere else in the country.
So I'll get by Blankety-Blank chequebook and pen this year instead of next, for reaching 50 donations.
Yup, just you wait until donors are starting to have accidents, or until the next "upgrade" which just happens to set your permissions for organ harvesting to "on", especially that helpful option "if I have 2, come and get one even when I'm still alive".
I'm OK with the publicity, but I dislike donorship being trivialised in this way. But that's just me.
Although I do see it as being very positive that others are now signed up, what actually prompted them to sign up this time as opposed to any other medium/campaign to sign up? Just because it's on FB? If so, do they really understand what they are doing? I.e. it's not a "Like" or anything.
Either way, if I was ever in the unfortunate position for a brain transplant, if the source was from an FB donor, I would definitely say "Unlike".
http://www.bloodservices.ca/centreapps/internet/uw_v502_mainengine.nsf/page/vCJD%20An%20Introduction
The US allows individual hospitals (or their credit cards) to make their own rule son transplants but , http://www.fda.gov/biologicsbloodvaccines/safetyavailability/bloodsafety/ucm095107.htm
If this were true, by now someone would have posted a warning email to all staff from the Surgeon General of teh UK of A backed by the Cheef of Your Local Polize warning how criminal gangs are targeting good citizens based on there [sic] facebook profiles and setting up road accidents or drunken doped one-night-stand hunny-trapz for stealing organs to order? No? Just me? OK, first draft, here goes. "WARNING - Please Read!" / "I've received this warning and thought it too important not to pass on! The police are warning everyone..."
2011 cost of a transplant, depending on organ/tissue: $600K - $1.2 million per organ/tissue
2011 compensation paid to families of organ/tissue donors: $0 per organ/tissue
Source: http://www.transplantliving.org/before-the-transplant/financing-a-transplant/the-costs/
As long as everybody else along the tissue/organ supply chain rakes in the big bucks, you can have my organs if you pony up some serious dough to provide for those I leave behind. I am sick of this "gift of life" propaganda perpetrated by entities whose entire income is derived from scamming me out of my organs/tissue for free.
To be fair, you can't just scoop the spare vitals out of a cooling body, bung em in a jiffy bag and mail them to hopeful soul on dialysis or whatever. There's a fair number of highly trained folk involved and a decent amount of very specialised equipment to boot.
I presume you are talking about the US medical system. This is what you get when you're so deathly afraid of 'socialism' and the government taxing you and spending money on your fellow citizens.
I can't speak for organ donation, but the UK blood transfusion service did some research, which showed their donations would go down if they paid. So they don't. Makes more sense in a country with free healthcare anyway. But paying cash for donations, as the US did in the 80s, had some pretty unfortunate consequences, which I believe is why they don't any more.
Anyway, how much would you pay for an organ? Can I bung you $5k for your dying husband's kidney madam? That's going to be a fun conversation...
Why not relax? You can do good, and make money, at the same time. Or should -we ban all doctors from being paid, because they shouldn't be making a profit from people being ill?
Organ donation is fucking expensive, because it requires the patient to spend a lifetime on specialist drugs, requires at least 2 surgical teams (for the donor and the patient), probably 2 life-support machines, a lot of matching, testing and tissue typing, a big database infrastructure, and much follow-up work. All along the line people get paid, and make profits. So what.
What on earth are you talking about ,you money grabbing fool. If you didn't donate your organs they would just go into the ground, or a burny fire, and be of absolutely no use at all and your family is bereaved. If you donate your organs your family has no additional suffering or costs.
In fact, I speak from experience, I am immensely proud that my brother's bits and pieces are now living on in several other bodies, saving lives. Why on earth should I get compensation for that? The letters from the Organ Donation Co-ordinateor, and even from the donors, telling me how their lives are now unmeasurably better, are more than anyone should need.
Sometimes, money is not the answer.
I registered as organ donor a long time ago, probably about the time I started giving blood.
The Mrs is under instructions that should I end up in a persistent vegitative state that the life support stay on long enough to farm out anything that is still salvagable.
After all, if I'm not in there, it's just meat.
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