Organ trade
The study tracked 131 patients from the United Arab Emirates and Oman who underwent kidney transplants in Bombay and who reportedly experienced numerous post-operative problems[5] In its report on organ trafficking in Europe, the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe wrote: "On a global scale, organ trafficking is not a new problem.
In the 1980s, experts began to notice a practice that was later dubbed 'transplant tourism': wealthy Asians traveled to India and other parts of Southeast Asia to obtain organs from poor donors.
Due to lack of infrastructure to maintain an efficient organ transplant system in the early 1980s, Iran legalized living non-related donation (LNRD) of kidneys in 1988.
[22][23] Although American federal law prohibits the sale of organs, it does permit state governments to compensate donors for travel, medical, and other incidental expenses associated with their donation.
[34] It also condemns the practice on the grounds that it "is likely to take unfair advantage of the poorest and most vulnerable groups, undermines altruistic donation and leads to profiteering and human trafficking.
[27] These global initiatives have served as a helpful resource for establishing medical professional codes and a legal framework for the issue, but have not provided the sanctions required for enforcement.
[62] Critics further allege that organs were not distributed on the basis of need, but rather allocated through a corrupt system or simply sold to wealthy Chinese and foreign individuals.
[65][55][66] In China, minorities including Uighurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians are targeted for 'organ harvesting', with Falun Gong practitioners being the primary victims of this brutal practice.
[69] Cheng, a Falun Gong practitioner, recounted how he was subjected to repeated blood tests and a subsequent forced surgery while imprisoned in China and later discovered during medical exams in the U.S. that segments of his liver and a portion of his lung had been surgically removed.
[70] Low costs and high availability brought in business from around the globe, and transformed India into one of the largest kidney transplant centers in the world.
One high-ranking government official estimated that 800 kidneys were sold annually in the country prior to 2008,[78] and the WHO listed it as one of the top five sites for transplant tourists in 2005.
On September 21, 2021, 92 Republican members of the U.S. Senate and House asked the heads of multiple federal agencies to investigate organ harvesting for research purposes.
The letter stated, "We are alarmed by public records obtained from the National Institutes of Heath (NIH) which show that the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) may have violated federal law by altering abortion procedures to harvest organs from babies who were old enough to live outside the womb.
"[80] However, PolitiFact reported several months earlier that "There is no indication that the fetal tissues used in the [University of Pittsburgh] experiments were 'purchased'," suggesting that the congress members' later description of this research as involving organ harvesting was inaccurate.
While some supporters of the organ trade argue that it helps lift some people out of poverty by providing compensation to donors, evidence of this claim is hotly debated.
Often, enforcement officials' access to information regarding individuals involved in illegal organ transplants is hindered by medical confidentiality regulations.
Without the ability to review medical records and histories to build an effective case against perpetrators, officials cannot fully enforce organ trade laws.
Many, such as the 1993 book The Baby Train by Jan Brunvand, are variations of the urban legend of an individual who wakes up in a hotel bathtub to discover that one of his or her kidneys has been removed.
For example, the 1993 British/Canadian TV program The Body Parts Business made a number of claims about organ trafficking that later proved to be false.
Many people in the United States believe that adopting a system for regulating organ trading similar to Iran's will help to decrease the national shortage of kidneys.
They argue that the U.S. could adopt similar policies to promote accountability, ensure safety in surgical practices, employ vendor registries, and provide donors with lifetime care.
[103] Proponents of organ markets argue that, given the comparative safety of donating a kidney, individuals should be permitted to undergo this operation in exchange for payment.
One such group is Organs Watch, which was established by Nancy Scheper-Hughes – a medical anthropologist who was instrumental in exposing illegal international organ-selling rings.
Scheper-Hughes is famous for her investigations, which have led to several arrests due to people from developing countries being forced or fooled into organ donations.
[118] Some opponents of markets adopt a paternalistic stance that prohibits organ sales on the grounds that the government has a duty to prevent harm to its citizens.
Even if one assumes that kidney sellers will have similar outcomes to donors in a regulated market, one cannot ignore the fact that a nephrectomy is an invasive procedure that – by definition – inflicts some injury upon the patient.
In contrast, if organ sales were legalized, a destitute individual could face pressure from family and creditors to sell a kidney – and possibly endure social consequences such as scorn or guilt if they declined.
This safeguard is designed to prevent unscrupulous buyers from taking advantage of potential donors and to ensure that the benefits of the increased organ supply are not limited to the rich.
[11] In the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Nobel laureate Gary Becker and Julio Elias estimated that a $31,700 compensation would provide enough kidneys for everyone on the wait list.
Many people in the United States believe that adopting a regulated organ trading system similar to Iran's would help to reduce the shortage of kidneys for transplantation.
