Facebook Inc. took a momentous action last week. And I don’t mean its announced intention to sell shares for $28 to $35 in an initial public offering later this month.

As ingenious, painstaking and justifiably attention-getting as domino swaps are, they should not blot out the dismal news that rates of kidney donation, from both living and deceased donors, fall woefully short of the need.

Please note: This event has been canceled. At this event, Sally Satel, M.D., will discuss her new book, When Altruism Isn’t Enough: The Case for Compensating Kidney Donors and the national organ shortage.

Sally Satel M.D., author of When Altruism Isn't Enough: The Case for Compensating Kidney Donors, will be available for comment.

Roughly 10% of all organ transplants in the world are obtained on the black market. A new investigation by puts a brutal face on that underground world.

The public is receptive to the idea of rewarding organ donors. It's time to leverage that receptivity.

In October of 2009, Kumud Majumder, the father of an 11-year-old son with advanced leukemia, joined a lawsuit challenging the federal ban on compensating bone-marrow donors. He wanted to save his son's life. Last week Mr. Majumder and his co-plaintiffs enjoyed a victory. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the majority of bone-marrow donors may lawfully be compensated.