Illegal kidney trade booms as new organ is 'sold every hour'

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The illegal trade in kidneys has risen to such a level that an estimated 10,000 black market operations involving purchased human organs now take place annually, or more than one an hour, World Health Organisation experts have revealed.

Evidence collected by a worldwide network of doctors shows that traffickers are defying laws intended to curtail their activities and are cashing in on rising international demand for replacement kidneys driven by the increase in diabetes and other diseases.

Patients, many of whom will go to China, India or Pakistan for surgery, can pay up to $200,000 (nearly £128,000) for a kidney to gangs who harvest organs from vulnerable, desperate people, sometimes for as little as $5,000.

The vast sums to be made by both traffickers and surgeons have been underlined by the arrest by Israeli police last week of 10 people, including a doctor, suspected of belonging to an international organ trafficking ring and of committing extortion, tax fraud and grievous bodily harm. Other illicit organ trafficking rings have been uncovered in India and Pakistan.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/27/kidney-trade-illegal-operations-who

[orpupilofnature57]

1. $$$$$$ Makes everything a commodity

This is a prime example against stem cell research ,the fear we would produce spare part beings with no other purpose than that ,but who could afford such technology?

[Scuba]

2. Meanwhile, my daughter has been waiting almost four years now.

She wouldn't buy one if she could afford it.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, alp.

[hue]

4. K&R!! Know this!!

[KT2000]

5. an excellent book on this subject

this is an eye opening book about the way various countries are dealing with the transplant industry - legal and illegal. In the US there is a move afoot to make legal the selling of organs - the free-market crowd. Their justifications are absurd, such as people will be healthier in the hopes that they will be chosen for organ donation.

Foreign countries who have missing prisoners are suspected of executions for the purpose of organ harvesting. This occurred after the country in question switched to "for profit" medical care.

Ethics in Organ Transplantation: Perspectives and Challenges, Edited by Nirmala Rao Khadpekar, The Icfai University Press, 52, Nagarjuna Hills, Punjagutta, Hyderabad, India-500 082, www.books.iupindia.org, Softcover, c.2008, $18, 254 pp.

[TeamPooka]

6. GOP slant is...

this is why Republicans call the poor lazy.
"you need food stamps but you still have two kidneys?"

[Surya Gayatri]

7. Another "Brave New World"?...this reminds me of a thriller

I read years ago called "Coma", where young, healthy people were purposely rendered brain-dead during routine surgeries.

They were then kept alive in secret hi-tech "cold storage" and harvested for their organs.

[may3rd]

8. This is the value of life in China, India or Pakistan

As the article states, those are the places that reap what they sow,
so, it seems

[Prometheus Bound]

10. THE WHO also mentions Brazil, Israel, South Africa and Moldova.

Earlier this year, police broke up an international ring which arranged for Israelis to receive kidneys from poor Brazilians at a clinic in the South African port city of Durban. But such highprofile successes merely scratch at the surface.

Countries such as Brazil, India and Moldova — well-known sources of donors — have all banned buying and selling of organs. But this has come at the risk of driving the trade underground.

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/9/feature0904/en/

[malthaussen]

9. Is Larry Niven smiling or crying? n/t

[lunatica]

11. Reminds me of the movie Repo Men

The possibilities of creatively obtaining donor organs is distinct.