It Takes Guts to be an Organ Donor: Facebook's Newest Enhancement

If you missed the announcement yesterday, Facebook has added a new enhancement that will likely be a huge game changer for the current 114,000 people in the U.S. alone who are barely clinging to life, hoping that many of us will respond.  An average of 17 of these die every day, still waiting.

In a eureka moment of brilliance, Dr. Andrew Cameron, a transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, helped bring the idea of registering for organ donation to Facebook.  But most of the announcements I've read are quoting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg giving credit to his doctor-to-be girlfriend.  Yet no matter whose idea it really was, less than one day after the announcement, Donate Life America - the national umbrella organization for local registration groups - reports that organ donor registrations have already spiked more in one day than they typically get in a month.

Not all response to the program has been positive, however.  Such comments as "What's next, Facebook....my DNA sample?" and "Keep your hands off my organs, Zuckerberg!" have cropped up by users wary of the social media juggernaut's information mining. 

Personally, I don't care if Facebook knows I'm registered as an organ donor.  My attitude is that if I can help one or more fellow human beings live when I die, what's the downside?  Some have raised the concern that they might receive less heroic care if the enticement of their organs is on the line.  Will it make me a less attractive corpse?  If I'm dead, I hardly think I'll care about that aspect.

If you'd like to register on Facebook for this program, it's easy.  Simply click on your timeline and then select "Life Events" and then "health and wellness".  It will bring up the organ donor option.  When you click on that option, it brings up the Donate Life America website where you will be directed to your local donor registry organization.  Just do it.