The near-universal ban on the sale of human organs, coupled with a widespread reluctance in many cultures to donate kidneys even after death, means that patients often must spend years hooked up to dialysis machines — unless they can find a willing donor. In recent years, Sri Lanka has attracted kidney buyers from as far afield as Israel and the United States.
Many donors are also taken to Iran, the only country in the world where selling kidneys is legal, though not to foreigners. Although the illicit racket has flourished since the s, social media has catapulted the trade into a new dimension.
Brokers like Vikas and Aadarsh are openly lurking on dozens of Facebook pages fashioned as kidney and transplant support groups. Once the demand for a particular match is relayed to the broker, all it takes is a single post promising monetary compensation in exchange for a healthy kidney.
Vikas was masquerading as a young woman called Priyanka Singh on several forums when Al Jazeera first contacted him. When anybody calls, I tell them she is my sister. In the past, I have also used English names.
But operating on social media comes with a strict set of rules, too. Also, I never respond to people who have contacted me once before.
The brokers told Al Jazeera they mostly target healthy and non-smoking donors in their 20s or early 30s, preferably men, since they can more easily travel abroad alone. Those who already have passports are given preference. Once trust is established, the potential donor is then sent for pre-arranged blood tests and a tissue-typing test in chosen pathology laboratories across New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
Those in the southwest of the country are usually sent to a large, private speciality hospital based in Chennai. This means every day about 18 die waiting for a transplant.
This world-wide organ shortage have caused a black market to crop up: the old "supply and demand thing". The creepiest part of all this is where black market organs are coming from.
The abject poor in dire need of cash, prisoners dead and alive! There is a simple way to fight this growing and gross practice: become an organ donor, which you can do over at OrganDonor. Are you an organ donor? Hot spots are Pakistan, the Philippines and China, where it is believed organs are obtained from executed prisoners, he said. Caplan, the University of Pennsylvania ethicist, said he expects the U. It's simply too exploitative of the poor and vulnerable.
The quality of the organs is questionable. People lie to get the money. The middle men are irresponsible and often criminals. They don't care about the people who sell.
Scheper-Hughes said her research has uncovered hundreds of cases of illegal organ transactions brokered by and for Israelis in Israel, South Africa, Turkey and other countries, with sellers recruited from poor communities in Moldova, Brazil and elsewhere.
In and , 17 people were arrested in Brazil and South Africa on suspicion of participating in an international human organ trafficking organization. Investigators said Brazilians who passed a medical checkup were flown to South Africa, where their kidneys were extracted.
A few transplant surgeons support changing the law to allow a system of regulated compensation to increase the pool of donor kidneys. Arthur Matas, a transplant surgeon who directs the kidney transplant service at the University of Minnesota Medical School, said donors could be compensated with some combination of lifetime access to medical care, life insurance, a tax credit, help with college and a small direct payment.
Martin Weinfeld, who lives around the corner from Rosenbaum in Brooklyn, said the allegations bring shame on the community. Please enter email address to continue. Please enter valid email address to continue.
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