Steve Jobs Helps Get Organ Donation Bill Passed
In a team-up that never made it to the big screen but just might make a big difference in many lives, Apple CEO Steve Jobs and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are pushing forward legislation aimed at improving organ donation in the state:
"Steve Jobs' was very instrumental in getting us here today," said the governor. "Steve Jobs told my wife about his transplant and she talked to me. Then we had great phone conversations back and forth. ... He knew that others don't have a plane waiting for them to get to a transplant."
Jobs said, "There were not enough livers in California to go around. I was advised by my Stanford doctors to enroll on a list at a Memphis hospital, because it was more favorable to get a liver there.
"I was fortunate," he said because he had the ability to fly cross country in the four-hour window needed to transplant a healthy organ. "Last year, 400 other Californians died waiting. I could have died."
He called current system "an obscure process" with "no one asking the simple question: Will you donate your organs?"
Of his current health, the whippet-thin Jobs told other transplant survivors who attended the Friday news conference, "I'm feeling fine. I almost died. It's been a pretty good last few months."
Non-iPhone friendly video after the break!
[Mercury News via 9to5Mac]
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.
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Organ donation is a blessing for many families, including mine. Good on you, Mr. Jobs, for using your fame to help spread the word.
Kudos for sure. More high profile people should try to do work like that.
Now I'm confused. I thought he got an iLiver.
It's great to see people of Steve Jobs' status campaining for such an important cause. My son has had 3 liver transplants (before he was 3 years old), one from me. The last one is working brilliantly, he's 8 next week and living a normal kids life. Without the selfless gift from the other 2 families he wouldn't be with us today. I live in the UK, hopefully success over there will open peoples eyes to the desparate need for organ donation.
Can gay people donate organs? I know we can't donate blood, I figured organs would be the same, so I checked not to be a donor on my license.
"Non-iPhone friendly video after the break!"
Steve, this news is not spreading enough because of this.
Hungwell: "Now I’m confused. I thought he got an iLiver."
Correction, he BOUGHT a new liver.
I'm all for organ donation but I don't sign my organ donor card on the back of my driver's license. Reason being, I don't want some doctor deciding I've had a full and wonderful life at 45 as he takes my liver to save a 5 year old.
CJ- You're right. A doctor's advice to his son-"Don't you ever sign that card." I guess he'd seen too many organ donors "not saved" in his career. Your family can always express your wishes for you once you are gone and doctors have legitimately done everything they can to save you.
@CJ... uh... The doctor's not gonna tell you, "we need your organs, STAT, and just take em. It's like if you're in a car wreck or something and die they can look on your drivers licsense and see that and have full permission to use your organs
So hormone imbalance is officially deprecated now?
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5029459/steve-jobs-admits-katie-cotton-lied-for-him
I think they should be aloud to use every bodies organs once they die
It is against some religions to remove the organs.
Also, the word you're looking for is "allowed."
@icebike right