Facebook has launched a program to promote organ donation, which grew from a conversation between the social media company's chief operating officer and a Johns Hopkins surgeon already passionate about the cause.
COO Sheryl Sandberg and Dr. Andrew M. Cameron took the chat they had about the shortage of organs at their 20th college reunion at Harvard University and turned it into reality. Facebook announced Tuesday a new organ transplant initiative that could reach hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Facebook users can now post their organ donor status just as they share whether they are in a relationship, where they went to college and what books they like to read.
Cameron, a Hopkins transplant surgeon, said he hopes the exposure, and more personal conversations, will raise the profile of organ shortages and inspire more people to register as donors. Facebook users will be able to link to organ donation sites in their states.
"It was this 'Eureka' chills-up-the-spine moment when I knew this would work," Cameron said, recalling last year's conversation. "I knew it was the perfect way to attack a very difficult problem."
Facebook did not return calls Tuesday.
Sandberg told Diane Sawyer from ABC News that five years before speaking with Cameron she read a profile in an alumni publication where he talked about patients he sees die as they wait for transplants. He wrote of how difficult it was to tell families there were no organs available, Sandberg said.
Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-hs-facebook-hopkins-20120501,0,950860.story
{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
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