Senin, 28 Mei 2012

An organ is sold every hour, WHO warns: Brutal black market on the rise again thanks to diseases of affluence

An organ is sold every hour, WHO warns: Brutal black market on the rise again thanks to diseases of affluence

By Damien Gayle

PUBLISHED: 23:52 EST, 27 May 2012 | UPDATED: 03:07 EST, 28 May 2012


Desperate: An Indian woman shows the scar from where she sold her kidney in a black market transplant op

Desperate: An Indian woman shows the scar from where she sold her kidney in a black market transplant op

An organ is sold once an hour, the World Health Organisation has warned, amid fears that the illegal trade is again on the rise.

The U.N. public health body estimates that 10,000 organs are now traded every year, with figures soaring off the back of a huge rise in black market kidney transplants.

Wealthy patients are paying up to £128,500 for a kidney to gangs, often in China, India and Pakistan, who harvest the organs from desperate people for as little as £3,200.

Eastern Europe also has a huge market for illegal organ donation and last month the Salvation Army revealed it had rescued a woman brought to the UK to have her organs harvested.

With kidneys believed to make up 75 per cent of the black market in organs, experts believe the rise of diseases of affluence - like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart problems - is spurring the trade.

The disparity of wealth between rich countries and poor also means there is no shortage of willing customers who can pay a premium - and desperate sellers who need the cash.

Dr Luc Noel, a WHO official, told The Guardian: 'The stakes are so big, the profit that can be made so huge, that the temptation is out there.'

The WHO does not know how many of the 106,879 known transplant operations in 2010 were performed with illegally harvested organs, but Dr Noel believes the figure could be as high as 10 per cent.

A lack of law enforcement in som e countries, and an inadequate legal framework in others meant that the traffickers urging poor people to part with an organ have it too easy, said Dr Noel.

A medical source with knowledge of the situation in China told the Guardian anonymously that rich foreigners mainly from the Middle East and Asia are the usual customers.

'While commercial transplantation is now forbidden by law in China, that's difficult to enforce; there's been a resurgence here in the last two or three years,' he said.

He added that some of China's military hospitals are even believed to be carrying out the operations.

Jim Feehally, professor of renal medicine at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, said that the key issue was one of exploitation, with poor donors often left with no medical care to recover from the brutal operations.

'The people who gain are the rich transplant patients who can afford to buy a kidney, the doctors and hospital administrators, and the middlemen, the traffickers,' he said. 'It's absolutely wrong, morally wrong.'

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11 people were arrested for "Organ Theft" in New York recently. You might have to do an internet search to understand the real story. We are really starting to look like a society without morals.

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Anyone remember watching the film, 'Coma' with Micahel Douglas? Think it couldn't really happen, well I wouldn't bet against it, for 'accidents'do happen in hospitals.

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As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. this practice will spread. It is quite common in India and China. It won't be long before it is also common in European countries, including Britain. People will make great sacrifices for their children, whether that involves selling a kidney in order to feed them, or buying a kidney in order to save their lives. The rule of supply and demand in the global economy!

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This is the problem that buying organs brings, and the person who purchases another persons organs which is usually kidneys is just as big a culprit as this encourages unscrupulous dealers into the trade. This trade can also bring disease back to the country the purchaser lives. Poor people are easily duped into it for money as they are usually in poor countries, and have to work, as there are no benefits for ill health, or for any drugs required. Anybody who requires a kidney should think long and hard about all this. If I needed a kidney I would not want a kidney in this way.

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A horrible situation. I understand these people are forced, and that's disgusting but I'd wager that if you were offered hundreds of thousands of dollars for your organ and you truly needed the money you would consider selling. For another matter, whilst so many people don't sign up to the donor register many hundreds of people who need organs will be forced to consider options like this if they have the funds.

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If my loved one was dying, and the only way to save them was to buy an organ from someone (as long as the donor could live without it, and was willing to sell it) I wouldn't hesitate to buy it! But if I thought anyone was going to die or suffer, I would not.

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........ Wasn't this headline taken from the Yamaha website ?

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Of course, the media will not dare mention the name of the country that leads the world in forced organ trafficking. That would be breaking the biggest taboo.

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Jekyll Hyde due to make a comeback.

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