Rogue kidney brokers resell organs from poorest nations on black market

[murdoch]

Source: New York Daily News

The international black market for kidneys — preying on the desperate and run by a shadowy network of greedy organ brokers — is flourishing, a Daily News probe found.

The arrest of a Brooklyn man Thursday on organ trafficking charges sheds a new spotlight on an underground business where wretchedly poor foreigners — particularly in India — are paid $2,000 to $10,000 for kidneys.

Those kidneys are ultimately sold for as much as $180,000 to transplant recipients who otherwise could die.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/07/26/2009-07-26_rogue_kidney_brokers_resell_organs_fetched_from_poorest_nations_on_black_market.html

---

One problem with this story - they mention only poor people who sell their kidneys. Many of these kidneys are stolen. Sometimes they even kill the person and take both kidneys (worth twice as much) - some of the organ ring people did this in Guatemala, although the campesinos took direct action against the local organ ring people ( http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN1631426420070616 ). In India, Central America, all over the world are these organ thefts and even often murder to get the two good organs.

Even without that, this article has a very sick take on this. I guess the brown people in the third world exist so the white people in the USA and Europe can harvest their organs for a few bucks. Even the sanitized version this reporter presents shows their sick mentality. But of course, the real story is not sanitized, these organ rings and have been stealing organs and even killing for organs for years now. Hopefully they'll finally prosecute one of them, this guy they got evidence about.

[KT2000]

1. Yes, but something else

is happening in conjunction with this story and that is the free-market-organ-sellers are voicing their opinions.
This is an emerging issue in the free-market group who want organ selling legalized. The Boston Globe recently had an editorial written by one of these nuts.

"Ethics in Organ Transplants: Perspectives and Challenges" edited by Nirmala Rao Khadpekar, gives a world-wide perspective on this hideous trade. People of color and the poor are being exploited to sell their kidneys to wealthy white people.
There should be a moratorium on all transplants until this is cleaned up - or stopped all together.

[Gin]

2. I thought there had to be compatible organs for a transplant.....

otherwise the transplant doesn't take....this sounds like organs being sold to anyone from anyone...or...what am I missing here?

[KT2000]

3. Compatibility is much easier

because they have better drugs to fight rejection.
The process for determining is less stringent. These people are screened for compatibility though.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. But sometimes little screening happens at all

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23694957/

which required http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/12/69916">recalls. :(

[BumRushDaShow]

4. "Coma" by Robin Cook (1977). n/t

[ConcernedCanuk]

5. Read it twice

.
.
.

Robin Cook has written some very informative books

"Robin Cook is a graduate of Columbia University Medical School and finished his postgraduate medical training at Harvard. "

http://www.shelfari.com/authors/a186/Robin-Cook/summary

[tomm2thumbs]

6. reminds me of the UCLA story months ago

'The University of Southern California, Los Angeles (UCLA) suspended its Willed Body Program following allegations two employees had engaged in selling body parts from cadavers that had been donated to its school of medicine.' Live people involved makes it all the more horrific and just makes you wonder what we don't know is going on in all parts of the globe when we happen to catch one here or there. Scary.

[Turbineguy]

7. Sounds like some

job opportunities for former investment bankers. Sell my kidneys to keep your house in the Hamptons.

[woundedkarma]

9. I wonder if ...

my kidney is worth $180k *blink*

[swilton]

10. The Free Market Strikes Again - Privatization at Its Best

:puke:

[BreweryYardRat]

11. I'd be in favor of using illegal organ traffickers who kill as involuntary donors.

Execute 'em and then break 'em down for parts. Mind you, like any other form of the death penalty, it should only be applicable in a small percentage of cases: clear-cut ones with plenty of evidence, DNA tests, no prosecutorial misconduct, et cetera. Otherwise you get the problems we have with the current application of the death penalty.

(For example, I wouldn't want to see some poor dumb courier who didn't even know what he was carrying get executed while the real criminals got away.)

Still, I think there'd be a sizeable drop in the illegal organ trade if the scum killing people risked the same fate themselves when caught red-handed.

Not sure what to do about the organ traffickers who actually pay their victims. Or the people who buy the organs -- how could you prove whether or not they knew they were getting a stolen organ, rather than one the victim sold?