A street brawl in India brings down a global kidney-transplant ring.

[babylonsister]

A street brawl in India brings down a global kidney-transplant ring.

by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
Caveat Donor


Image credit: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images


In a country where 300 million people live on less than a dollar a day, Amit Kumar—nicknamed “Dr. Horror” by the Indian media after his arrest last winter for heading an illicit global kidney-transplant ring—had little trouble finding homegrown organ donors. One favorite hunting ground was a strip of restaurants, shops, and hovels near an Islamic shrine, or dargah, in Mahim, a predominantly Muslim precinct of Mumbai. Devotees of the dargah, which attracts people of all faiths, donate money to restaurants to help feed the beggars who cluster there. Last June, walking past one such restaurant whose kitchen extends to the sidewalk, I saw a dozen or so men huddled within scorching distance of giant cauldrons in which meat and potatoes simmered. Expressions glazed and clothing in tatters, the men watched, motionless and silent, their patience unwavering. I felt as if I were looking at a still photo.

Kumar, who’s now on trial, has told officials that he sent his agents to offer such men anywhere from $500 to $2,500 for a kidney. Elsewhere, in the fast-growing towns of states like Haryāna and Uttar Pradesh, Kumar’s ring also went after newly arrived migrant workers seeking jobs.

Most donors were keen to trade their kidneys for cash. Some were professional blood donors, such as Mahesh, who worked at a tea stall near a century-old clock tower with a shattered dial that rises above Meerut, a city in Uttar Pradesh, near Delhi. He, in turn, told me about Shahid, a rickshaw puller who joined Kumar’s group after having made a career out of finding men who would sell their blood to nursing homes. Leveraging his knowledge of blood sellers, Shahid became one of Kumar’s most successful kidney hunters. Then there was Gyasuddin, a boyish-looking migrant worker with a shock of hair who sold his kidney for $1,000 and became another node in Kumar’s Meerut network.

Wandering through Meerut’s narrow streets, amid hundreds of cyclists, rickshaw pullers, three-wheelers, cars, and pedestrians, I asked shop owners and lemonade vendors where I could find other people who had sold their kidneys. They pointed me toward a rundown building across from the tower. Behind a tall iron gate, groups of men were playing cards in the shade of a tree, among them Rakesh, Mahesh, and Om Prakash—all of whom would later raise their shirts to show me long scars above the waist.

more...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/organ-transplant-india

[TomInTib]

1. Wow. I would be so pissed if I was the recipient of one of those.

What a surreal account.

KnR

[bertman]

2. Rec. This is sad and disgusting. When I look at countries where there are millions of

impoverished people begging for food and living with no job, no shelter, I wonder why these people keep having babies and perpetuate this horrific situation.

Don't these countries have birth control? I know India is not Catholic so it would seem they could offer birth control to any who wanted it. And educate those who don't want it.

I watched a documentary on Chavez' Venezuela that was showing the shanty town slums of Caracas. It's like that all over South America. I assume that is due in large part to the Catholic church's anti-birth control stance. That doesn't explain places like India, Pakistan, China.

I realize that I am missing something here. Even if the ruling classes want us to breed like rabbits so they have lots of slave labor and bodies to fill military uniforms don't the people see what a terrible life it is and want to stop having more children? Or is it just that our biological urges are so great that we will try to reproduce even with full knowledge that we are bringing children into a hellhole existence? Is it cultural pressure? Why would the lowest castes in India want to bring their children into that abject slavery?

Being someone who decided when I was in my late teens that I did not want to bring more children into this world (I planned to adopt but married a woman with children) I find the population explosion to be inexplicable.

[roody]

3. Teach women to read. That is the best way to decrease birth rates.

Cuba is a model of reproductive health and freedom. Excellent education including sex education and free health care. It is an amazing contrast to the countries in S. America you are referring to.

[bertman]

5. I didn't know that, roody. No wonder we don't want to re-engage with Cuba. They make

decisions that are sound and based on something other than making money.

[SharonAnn]

4. The Catholic Church in South America has often supported the "haves" instead of the "have-nots"

[bertman]

6. My impression is that is the case EVERYWHERE, not just in SA, SharoAnn. But in Europe

they have gotten fed up with the church's authoritarianism and left in droves. Maybe that's why they are not keeping up with their reproduction rates. Which in my mind is not a bad thing, but if you ask an economist or corporatist that's not a good thing. Seems to me the planet could use a break instead of adding millions more of us "consumers" to its burden.

[concerned canadian]

8. my understanding is that poor people in india often lose children

through disease and other misfortunes, so they keep having more children so that some of them will live and grow up to

support the parents when the parents are old.

[Blue_Tires]

7. what the shit?