Demand for kidneys worldwide sparks dramatic rise in illegal organ sales: report - NY Daily News
BY ERIK ORTIZ / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, May 29, 2012, 9:58 AM
JERI GLEITER/GETTY IMAGES
Demand for kidneys has increased so dramatically worldwide — particularly in impoverished countries — that world health officials worry a black market of organs for cash is flourishing.
An estimated 10,000 illegal organ operations take place every year — or more than one an hour, according to World Health Organization statistics.
Traffickers and the surgeons they conspire with are making out like bandits, reports state, earning a lucrative return with every operation.
“It’s ever growing, it’s a constant struggle,” said Dr. Luc Noel, a WHO official who monitors the transplant trade. “The stakes are so big, the profit that can be made so huge, that the temptation is out there.”
The Guardian reported Sunday that ill patients might pay as much as $200,000 for a kidney, travelling to countries such as China, India and Pakistan, where destitute donors are willing to have a kidney removed for as little as $5,000.
Noel said kidneys make up 75% of the illegal organ trade, booming because of growing diabetes and high blood pressure rates throughout the world, according to The Guardian.
The demand means some organ brokers aren’t shy about soliciting business: The Guardian found an advertisement on China’s popular Twitter-like website, Weibo, with the slogan, “Donate a kidney, buy the new iPad!” The broker was offering nearly $4,000 for an operation done within 10 days.
Meanwhile, sellers appear just as desperate. BBC News reported last year how a 17-year-old in China sold his kidney for $3,392 to buy an iPad 2 and a laptop.
Selling organs is illegal in China, and the government has tried to curb trafficking by instituting a voluntary donor program a few years ago, BBC News said.
The U.S. government made it illegal to sell or buy organs in 1984.
Last year, a Brooklyn man pleaded guilty to brokering three illegal kidney transplants worth a total $420,000. Levy Izhak Rosenbaum bought the organs from vulnerable people in Israel for $10,000, federal prosecutors said.
Rosenbaum, 60, could be sentenced Thursday in federal court and faces a five-year prison sentence per count and a fine of up to $250,000, according to reports.
He was the first person ever successfully convicted for illegal organ trafficking in the United States. |
