Cash-strapped sell their kidneys to pay off debts

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle6850879.ece

British victims of the credit crunch are offering to sell their kidneys for £25,000 or more to help pay debts, an investigation by The Sunday Times has revealed.

At least a dozen adverts have appeared on the internet offering kidneys for sale from British “donors”. Five of the sellers corresponded with undercover journalists, who posed as friends and relatives of sick patients to negotiate sales.

One person willing to sell a kidney is a 26-year-old mental health nurse who said he needed the money to pay debts after a business he set up went bankrupt. Another is a 43-year-old taxi driver from Lancashire, who wants to raise cash to pay off some of his mortgage and buy a new kitchen.

Both men said they wanted to help those in need of kidney transplants at the same time as relieving their financial difficulties. A leading doctor said the phenomenon highlighted the need for a public discussion of the issue of selling organs.

Professor Peter Friend, a former president of the British Transplant Society, said: “The West has outlawed it for all sorts of good reasons, but the result is it goes underground. It is really important to have a debate.” Nearly 7,000 people in the UK are waiting for kidney transplants and 300 died last year while on the waiting list.

Offering to sell an organ in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is an offence under the Human Tissue Act even if the seller is planning to travel to another country for the transplant operation.

Yesterday William Henderson, the taxi driver, justified his offer to sell a kidney by saying: “I thought I was going to give another man a chance of life. I wanted to help myself at the same time. We are in the middle of a giant credit crunch.” He added: “A guy from Pakistan wanted one, but I turned him down. I think he was more buying it to sell it on. I’d rather . . . it’s got somewhere good to go.

Originally Posted by longitude

Professor Peter Friend, a former president of the British Transplant Society, said: “The West has outlawed it for all sorts of good reasons, but the result is it goes underground. It is really important to have a debate.”

+1

its one of those issues where a simple 'ban it!' often doesnt work as intended.

people want organs. people want cash. there will always be an organ market as long as thats the case....when you ban it outright, it just becomes a black market game, with all the additional risk that comes with that.

Originally Posted by CanadianMike

its one of those issues where a simple 'ban it!' often doesnt work as intended.

people want organs. people want cash. there will always be an organ market as long as thats the case....when you ban it outright, it just becomes a black market game, with all the additional risk that comes with that.

Banning works reasonably well, because there aren't many western doctors that will defy the ban, and it forces people to get the surgery done in other countries. Which will dissuade large numbers of people.

And if you want to further dissuade them you can levy large fines on people who have unapproved transplants. After a transplant you are going to have to be on anti-rejection meds for the rest of your life. It's not something that can easily be hidden.

it's terribly difficult to find a very good match for organ transplantation. why? it's a numbers game. so few organs, so many patients.

if you allow people to donate organs, thousands of lives can be saved yearly. those that would have needed to be on immunosuppressive drugs after having waiting a long time for a transplant, would be able to get a transplant sooner and be better matched (ie much lower chance of rejection)

i'm not sure about other organs, but almost everyone functions perfectly with a single kidney (even one kidney gives you more than enough functioning if it is healthy).

since folks can't get it done properly where they are, most probably won't do it. but the desperate will go seek it elsewhere, where it is probably far riskier than it should be, and possibly negating the benefits to a) the donor, b) the recipient

so how much do kidney transplants cost in the underground?