I read an article the other day on CNN titled "Donor says he got thousands for his kidney". I was intrigued by the title, which had appeared on the home page, and decided to read the article. Nick Rosen, a young, Israeli responded to an ad in a newspaper labled "Organ donor wanted" so he flew to New York and had his kidney removed at Mount Sinai Medical Center. It may sound absurd, but he didn't just do this on a whim, he was payed $20,000 dollars to donate his kidney. Many of the people who are donating their organs for money are from Eastern Europe, and their reasoning: they need the money. Almost all of the patients were poor and simply needed the money. Rosen's story is only one of many that have been uncovered in a recent investigation about the black market for human organs. What Rosen did, however, is not a unique situation. Recent studies show that about 10% of transplants are illicit. This number amazed me. What also amazed me was the extent of the underground traffiking.
I mean, what compels people to bribe others into selling their organs? Why is there so much underground traffiking, and where did it all get started?
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I think what gets others to sell their organs is the vast amount of benefit those organs give. If an illicit under ground surgeon buys a kidney for 20 grand, maybe he can sell it to a family for significantly more than that.
ReplyDeleteThe ratio of supply and demand of organs is understandably unbalanced. A large amount of people need organs, and often they can't because of long waiting lists and medical complications. Still, families are going to want their loved one to survive, so there's money to be made.
This reminds me of the repo goth opera, slightly.
This topic really interests. And it also scares me a little too. I remember I watched a "Without a Trace" episode dealing with the same thing. In the episode the detectives found out that the missing person's father was a doctor, but at night he was killing people, taking out all of their organs and then selling them to people for a ton of money. I think the reason that people may be compelled to do this and enter the black market is because of money. People are desperate creatures and sometimes resort to drastic measures. There is such a high demand for organs that people will do anything to keep a loved one alive, even if means purchasing an organ from the black market. If it will keep their husband, or sister, or whomever alive, it won't matter where the organ came from. This idea makes me cringe but I can see how it may have started.
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