Compensating bone marrow (blood stem cell) donors: still in legal limbo

Whether it will remain legal to compensate donors of bone marrow (blood stem cells) remains in limbo (see my various posts on the subject here).  The WSJ has an op-ed that summarizes the situation: 

Pay Bone-Marrow Donors, Save Lives: Thousands of Americans are waiting for donations—and while bureaucrats fiddle, patients die. By JEFF ROWES and  BOB MCNAMARA

Briefly, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the ban on paying blood stem cell donors (if the technology was non-surgical), but the Department of Health and Human Services proposed a new regulation that would restore the ban. The regulation went out for public comment, and many comments were received, mostly against reinstating the ban.  The WSJ op-ed writes about that this way (in a way that makes me reflect on some of the oddities of news coverage):

"But a year after Ms. Flynn won her case, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it might enact a regulation effectively nullifying the court’s ruling—and thus Ms. Flynn’s victory. In September 2013, HHS sought public comment. Hundreds of comments poured in favoring compensation for blood stem-cell donors who use apheresis, including support from Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin Roth, who has long written on organ-donation policy. Only a handful of comments were opposed."

As you can imagine, I was one among many signers of the comment that I supported (which you can read here): the others, all economists, were

Theodore Bergstrom, University of California at S. Barbara, Stefano DellaVigna, University of

California at Berkeley, Julio J. Elias, Universidad del CEMA, Argentina,

Rodney Garratt, University of California at S. Barbara,

Michael Gibbs, University of Chicago, Judd Kessler, University of Pennsylvania, Nicola Lacetera,

University of Toronto, Stephen Leider, University of Michigan, John List, University of Chicago,

Mario Macis, Johns Hopkins University, Daniel McFadden, University of California at Berkeley, Matthew Rabin, University of California at Berkeley, Alvin Roth, Stanford University, Damien Sheehan-Connor, Wesleyan University, Robert Slonim, University of Sydney, Alex Tabarrok, George Mason University

If you have the time, you can read all 527 comments here.