Shopped Liver-The worldwide market in human organs

[babylonsister]

http://www.slate.com/id/2164177/fr/flyout

Shopped Liver
The worldwide market in human organs
By William Saletan
Posted Saturday, April 14, 2007

If you lose your job, you can sell your home. If you lose your home, you can sell your possessions. If you lose your possessions, you can prostitute yourself. And if you lose everything else, you can sell one more thing: your organs.

Twice in the last two weeks, transplant experts from around the world have convened in Europe to discuss the emerging global market in human flesh. Two maps presented at the meetings tell the story. One shows countries from which patients have traveled for organs in the last three years: Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea. The other shows countries from which organs have been sold: China, Pakistan, Colombia, the Philippines.

The numbers on the maps add up to thousands. According to the World Health Organization, the annual tally of international kidney transactions alone is about 6,000. The evidence includes reports from brokers and physicians, accounts from Indian villages, surveys of hospitals in Japan, government records in Singapore, and scars in Egyptian slums. In Pakistan, 40 percent of people in some villages are turning up with only one kidney. Charts presented at the meetings show the number of "donations" from unrelated Pakistanis skyrocketing. Two-thirds of the people getting these organs are foreigners. Data from the Philippines show the same thing.

The first successful organ transplant took place half a century ago. Since then, diabetes, hypertension, and other kidney-destroying diseases have spread. Antibiotics have improved, as have drugs that suppress the immune response to foreign organs. More people need transplants, and more can be saved by them. But donations haven't kept up with demand. An estimated 170,000 patients in the U.S. and Europe are on waiting lists. More than 70,000 Americans are waiting for kidneys, and the list has grown at a rate of almost 5,000 per year. People are dying.

Instead of waiting, many patients have set out to recruit their own donors. They started with billboards, then moved to Web sites such as MatchingDonors.com, JoeNeedsaLiver.com, and HelpMyGrandpa.com. Around the world, people have learned that their organs are assets. Peruvians, Ukrainians, Chinese hospitals, and American inmates advertise their innards. Last year, a South Korean playwright used his kidney as collateral for a loan.

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[Donnachaidh]

1. there is a movie that is a real eye-opener on the seedy side of transplants

and the people who are acting as middle-men. It's called "Dirty Pretty Things". If you haven't heard of it, you should try to find a copy.

[TahitiNut]

2. Yet another example of ....

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/378