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LifeSharers People
ADVISORS
"Because of our system of presumed non-consent to organ donation, there
is a large shortage of organs for transplantation in the United States. To me,
there is an inherent fairness in having organs made available first to
individuals who have indicated their willingness to donate their own organs."
Gerry W. Beyer
Governor Preston E. Smith Regents Professor of Law,
Texas Tech University School
of Law
"The organ shortage persists because the federal government's organ allocation system shows too
little respect for the rights of organ donors. LifeSharers is fixing that,
by acknowledging individual ownership of organs and by helping organ donors
exercise their legal right to decide who gets their organs when they die."
Twila Brase, R.N.
President, Citizens'
Council on Health Care
"It is a fundamental issue of fairness that people who agree to donate
organs should get priority if they need one. It is an irony that
most organs go to people who haven't signed up as donors. Thousands of
people are dying needlessly every year -- not because life-saving organs don't
exist, but because we don't incent people properly to make them available in the
first place. LifeSharers is helping to fix that."
Steve P. Calandrillo
Professor,
University of Washington Law School
"By giving people an incentive to become organ donors, LifeSharers offers
hope to those otherwise doomed by our government to die while waiting for a
life-saving organ transplant operation."
Lloyd R.
Cohen
Professor,
George Mason University School of Law
"LifeSharers is an ingenious effort to harness the collective efforts of many
individuals to increase the supply of usable organs. It gives preferences
in case of need to those who are willing to make their organs available to
others."
Richard A. Epstein
James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law,
University of Chicago Law School
Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow,
Hoover Institution
"LifeSharers exemplifies social cooperation at its best. It shows that
human ingenuity can overcome government-imposed scarcity by finding creative
ways for people to help themselves by helping others."
Sigrid Fry-Revere, J.D., Ph.D.
Medical Ethicist, Health Care and FDA Policy Analyst
Former Cato Institute director of bioethics studies
"LifeSharers provides a powerful rebuttal to complacency and indeterminacy.
The result might inspire a change in the beleaguered and ineffectual organ
procurement system."
Michele Goodwin
Everett Fraser Professor of Law,
University of Minnesota Law
School
Visiting Professor of Law,
University of Chicago Law School
Author of
"Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts"
"LifeSharers is an inspiring example of the power of freedom to fix people's
problems."
David R. Henderson
Associate
Professor, Graduate School of Business and Public Policy, Naval Postgraduate
School
Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
"The country needs to know that patients on organ waiting lists die
needlessly every day, and that we have it in our power to change that. But
someone has to push the envelope if we are ever going to overthrow the
long-prevailing notion that altruism is the only ethical motive underlying organ
donation. LifeSharers and its associated scholars and experts is working to
achieve that goal."
Merrill Matthews, Ph.D.
Director, Council for
Affordable Health Insurance
Resident Scholar, Institute for
Policy Innovation
"LifeSharers has the potential to make a significant dent in the ever growing
organ shortage. I really like the fact that the decision to donate is mine and
not left to those left behind. If more individuals donated altruistically while
living or donated upon their passing the growing problem could be solved.
Everyone should seriously think about the impact they could have on their fellow
man."
Thomas Mollo
Executive
Director, National Kidney Registry
"A free and civil society encourages compassion through incentives and the
natural goodwill of caring, future-focused individuals. Getting involved with
LifeSharers accomplishes many things: it helps solve a pressing need, it saves
lives, it advances a great idea, and it does all that in a fashion that is in
perfect harmony with the principles of liberty and responsibility. What more
could anybody want?!"
Lawrence W. Reed
President, Foundation for Economic
Education
President Emeritus,
Mackinac Center for Public Policy
"Those who are willing to give should be the first to receive. LifeSharers makes this idea a reality. If enough people join LifeSharers,
we could even have a surplus of organs."
Alexander
Tabarrok
Associate Professor, Department of Economics,
George Mason University
Research Director,
The Independent Institute
MEMBERS
"LifeSharers is a wonderful idea, a way to increase the supply of organs by
providing a personal incentive to those who might consider donating. Whatever
the reasons preventing people from becoming donors currently, LifeSharers can
make people feel more comfortable with following their desire to help others."
Benjamin Abelow, M.D.
Medical textbook author
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
"LifeSharers is an inherently fair way for people who don't have much money,
and even those who do, to have an even chance at receiving an organ when they
need one."
Fr. Phillip L. Adams
Lighthouse Christian Ministries
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
"LifeSharers is an opportunity to put the Golden Rule into action. In
times of need, do for others as you would want them to do for you."
Anthony G. Alessi, M.D.
Chief of Neurology,
William W. Backus Hospital
Author and
Talk Show Host
Norwich, Connecticut
"LifeSharers gives you a leg up on the list to get a donated organ. All
you have to do is promise to donate your organs when you die. Seems like a
good idea to me."
Amy Alkon
The Advice Goddess
Syndicated Columnist
Santa Monica, California
"LifeSharers is an ethical solution to the problem of deciding between potential
recipients of the inadequate number of donor organs."
Nancy J.V. Bohannon, M.D.
San Francisco, California
"Signing up for organ donation is a social contract. In the case of
organ scarcity it is appropriate to favor fellow organ donors over free riders.
When it is time to allocate a scarce resource, it is fair to assign priority to
people who are willing to both give and receive."
Katrina A. Bramstedt, Ph.D.
Clinical Ethicist, California
Pacific Medical Center
San Francisco, California
"America has an organ donor crisis. Altruism, while laudable, is failing
miserably to meet the demand for organs. LifeSharers is an entirely fair and
appropriate way to help reverse the organ donor crisis. The FAIR Foundation also
supports two additional new organ donation policies,
Presumed Consent and Donation Benefits, to insure more dying
patients receive the 'Gift of Life'."
Dr. Richard Darling, DDS
President and CEO,
FAIR
Foundation
Palm Desert, California
"Donating organs is one of the most responsible things a person can do. It
ensures life will never be wasted."
Anne L. Galante, M.D.
Obstetrician/Gynecologist
Middlebury, Vermont
"People are literally dying trying to get organs, but not enough people
are dying to give them. LifeSharers brings parity and fairness to a system that
desperately needs it."
Seth Godin
Author
Hastings on Hudson, New York
"I was already a registered organ donor when I joined LifeSharers. I
joined to help create an incentive for others to become donors."
G. Neil Green, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer,
Microbial
Novoteqs, Inc.
Nashville, Tennessee
"LifeSharers provides an incentive to organ sharing that is remarkably
reasonable and fair. I'll be encouraging others to join!"
Byron Harvey
Pastor, Red Oak, an
Evangelical Free Church
Marietta, Georgia
"We joined LifeSharers in 2002. We are not on the organ waiting list, but
felt compelled to join once we learned about the disturbing disparity between
organ recipients who are themselves organ donors vs. those who are not. It's
just crazy!"
Mike and Amanda Haynes
http://www.isatisfy.com
Miami Beach, Florida
"LifeSharers helps mitigate the government-created organ-shortage nightmare.
Who could be opposed to that?"
J. H. Huebert
Attorney
Adjunct Faculty Member, Ludwig
von Mises Institute
Columbus, Ohio
"It is more blessed to give than to receive. Giving is the only way to
insure honorable receiving."
Laurence Jensen, Ph.D.,
M.B.A., D.D.
Archbishop, Spiritus
Church
Sedona, Arizona
"Those who pay into the system should be the ones to get paid back if
something happens."
Cheryl S. Johnson
Science Teacher
McMurray Middle School
Nashville, Tennessee
"I was already an organ donor when I heard
about LifeSharers. After reading about it, I thought it was a fantastic idea. I hope it will inspire more people to become organ donors. No one wants to
think about it, but it's a fact of life -- people need organs every day. Joining
LifeSharers saves lives -- possibly a loved one's or even your own."
Dene Marie Jomei
Musician
http://www.denemarie.com
Los Angeles, California
"LifeSharers is dedicated to taking inevitable tragedy and turning it into
hope. LifeSharers offers a unique and powerful win-win situation in which all
people have nothing to lose and everything to gain."
Erin Jurrens-Sudkamp
Attorney
St. Louis, Missouri
"Because there is no market incentive, a lot of people don't bother to fill
out an organ donor card or make their wishes known to their families. Their valuable organs, which might have saved lives, go into the
ground with them. LifeSharers is out to change that. As a
LifeSharers member, If you someday need a transplant your previous commitment to
donate your organs will move you up the waiting list past those who have made no
such commitment."
Thomas L. Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review
St. Louis, Missouri
"LifeSharers is a brilliant idea. It promotes human life and human
freedom. It's like buying into an organ transplant
assurance program, and you pay with your pledge to donate."
Harold Kyriazi, Ph.D.
Department of Neurobiology
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Creator of
www.organselling.com and
www.organgiving.org
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
"Many people give up the fight for survival, when the fight can be won, with dignity,
under a caring and cooperative venture like LifeSharers, a community of selfless
people whose pledge to give earns them the privilege of receiving. Everyone
should join!"
Atilano Lacson, M.D.
Affiliate Professor, Pediatrics and Pathology
University of South Florida at
All Children's Hospital
St. Petersburg, Florida
"It is unethical for people to expect to receive organs if unwilling to
donate."
David A. Lang, M.D.
Family Physician,
Apple Valley Medical Clinic, Ltd.
Apple Valley, Minnesota
"LifeSharers is a private, voluntary, fair solution to a resource problem
that I'd like to see applied to more government-created snafus."
Sunni Maravillosa, Ph.D.
Mother, writer, psychologist
SunniMaravillosa.com
Evanston, Wyoming
"LifeSharers' practical and simple principles should be applied to all organ
transplantation to be fair and drastically reduce the heartache for families
waiting for organs that may never come."
Jacqueline Marcell, B.S.
Author, Elder Rage
Host,
Coping With Caregiving Radio
Writer, Elder Care
Blog
Irvine, California
"I don't want my family to have to face a heartbreaking decision about
donating my organs when I die. By joining LifeSharers, I took this burden off
their shoulders."
Brigid McGinley
Mother and Attorney
Hurley, New York
"LifeSharers will reduce the number of people who die while waiting for
an organ by creating an incentive for more people to become organ donors. It is
also more equitable because those who choose to become an organ donor through
LifeSharers get first dibs on the organs of LifeSharers members."
Robert H. Moody II
Certified Financial Planner
Compass Advisors LLC
Atlanta, Georgia
"A person who helps others should be able to get help when it is needed, over
someone who wants help but never offers it. It has been said that God
helps those who help themselves. LifeSharers is a means by which we help
ourselves and each other."
Larry E. Nazimek
V. P. for Public Relations
LifeLine Pilots
Peoria, Illinois
"LifeSharers is an innovative approach that helps each of us save lives."
Mehmet C. Oz, MD, FACS
Professor of Surgery,
Columbia
University College of Physicians & Surgeons
Director, Cardiovascular Institute,
Columbia University
Medical Center
Vice Chairman, Cardiovascular Services, Department of Surgery, Columbia
University Medical Center
Attending Surgeon, NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center
New York, New York
"LifeSharers is one
of those great ideas – so simple and obvious you wonder why no one thought of it
earlier. Let’s hear it for common sense!"
Daniel Asa
Rose
Author,
"LARRY'S KIDNEY: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China With My
Black-Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a
Transplant ... and Save His Life"
Rehoboth, Massachusetts
"With such a severe organ shortage, it seems only fair that those who want
the privilege of access meet the responsibility of donation. LifeSharers is
helping make that happen."
Sally Satel, M.D.
Author, "One Nation Under
Therapy" and "PC, M.D."
Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
Staff Psychiatrist, Oasis Drug Treatment Clinic
Lecturer, Yale University School of Medicine
Washington, D.C.
"I've been a registered organ donor for years. Now, with LifeSharers, I can
help ensure that my organs are distributed in a fair manner to others who are
willing to make the same commitment. It's a great idea and every free market
advocate should join."
Mary Lou Seymour
Editor, Rational Review
South Carolina
"I joined LifeSharers because I take Jesus' instruction to heart: 'He
who has two coats, let him share with him who has none (Luke 3:11).' Also,
there is an enlightened self-interest that underpins the LifeSharers movement:
by joining, a member has greater assurance of getting a donated organ if the
member needs one. At the same time, the total pool of organs available for
transplant is increased."
David Spence, M.D.
Flagstaff, Arizona
"LifeSharers membership is a compelling investment in your future. It's free,
and it could literally save your life. By joining LifeSharers you reduce the
chance you'll die waiting if you ever need an organ transplant."
Bill Staton, MBA, CFA
Chairman, Staton Financial
Advisors LLC
Charlotte, North Carolina
"There ought to be a free market in organs, but since that's illegal,
LifeSharers may be the next best thing. It's criminal that dozens die every day
waiting for organs."
John Stossel
Author and Reporter
New York, New York
"Give a penny, take a penny."
James Taranto
Editorial Board Member,
The Wall
Street Journal
Author,
Best of the Web Today
New York, New York
"If enough people join LifeSharers, there will be a lot fewer people dying
waiting for transplants. I know because I saw this happen to dialysis patients
while my husband was waiting for me to donate a kidney to him. While a living
donor can save one person, a deceased donor can save several people. It doesn't
cost anything to join LifeSharers, so why would anyone not want to participate?"
Janice Uible
Cincinnati, Ohio
"We read about LifeSharers in our local newspaper and were immediately drawn to
the organization because of its mission. We joined not so much for our own needs, but because
we know we are giving priority in utilizing our donated organs to others who are
willing to give. What a wonderful way to encourage ALL PEOPLE to donate, which is the ultimate goal here!"
John Wisniewski, MD
Board Certified Internal Medicine
Kimberly Wisniewski
Board Certified Nurse Practitioner
Indian Lake, Pennsylvania
VOLUNTEERS
Media Outreach
"Having worked in the non-profit realm for 30 years, it’s now an honor
to do volunteer work for LifeSharers as a retiree. Resist your resistance to
sharing your organs with others – only a community effort is going to change the
horrible lack of available organs for transplant."
Ann Mitchell
Basalt, Colorado
Public Relations
"Having donated a kidney to my son, I was very aware of the tremendous need
for organ donations. When I read about LifeSharers, I knew it was an
organization that could make a real difference. People live or die every day
based on whether their neighbors are willing to be organ donors. If you are
willing to step up to the plate and be a donor, then you should have first
access to organs if the need should ever arise in your life. To me, it's a basic
issue of fairness."
John Landsberg
President
Bottom Line
Communications
Kansas City, Missouri
Public Service Announcer
"I truly am honored to be a supporter, volunteer, member and voice for a
noble organization like LifeSharers whose priority is to save lives, period. I'm
down wit dat like four flats on a Cadillac. LifeSharers, I got your back."
B.Z.
Voice Talent
Vocalizm.com,
BZ.voices.com
Los Angeles, California
Web and Database Programming
"When you join LifeSharers you make a difference now and in the future."
Jose Presa
Senior Vice President
U.S. Registries LLC
Nashville, Tennessee
Printing
Custom Craftsman Printing Incorporated
730 Decatur Avenue North
Golden Valley, MN 55427
1-800-784-7143
STAFF
"Join LifeSharers today. It's free. It could save your
life."
David J. Undis
Executive Director
LifeSharers
Nashville, Tennessee
Read answers to frequently
asked questions.
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