”Made in China” Ping.
(Please FReepmail me if you would like to be on or off of the list.)
Posted on 11/11/2007 8:57:36 AM PST by JACKRUSSELL
When Malaka, an Indian tsunami refugee, agreed to sell her kidney, the organ broker told her she would receive $3,500. But after the operation, he gave her only $700 - for an organ that a wealthy foreigner likely paid $40,000.
"She got what she deserved," the broker told the National Geographic Channel in an "Explorer" episode, "Inside the Body Trade," that airs tonight.
Later, when Malaka's son's kidneys were failing, the doctor told her, "You gave away your kidney. Now your child needs a kidney. Who will give it to him?"
While free-market types have talked up Transplant Tourism as a nifty way for the world's poor to barter their way out of poverty, National Geographic Channel reporter Lisa Ling told me that after visiting organ donors from two villages in India - one known as Kidneyville - "the overwhelming majority of them did not get the money they were promised."
Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania Art Caplan told me, "We may feel we can still justify this by saying we're leaving them better off than they were - minus a kidney, but at least they've got some change in their pocket." In a sense, it is "the equivalent of the neighborhood thug comes to town and says, 'You owe me money and I see you have two kidneys.' "
At least Malaka is alive. In China, officials have admitted that they have sold the organs of executed prisoners to foreigners. And China executes convicts, not just for violent crimes, but also for crimes like embezzlement - perhaps even, according to allegations denied by the government, for being an adherent of Falun Gong.
"Nobody really told me about these things that I'm hearing about now... I had no idea," Eric De Leon......
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Americans aren’t the only ones that need organs. How about the rest of the world.
American customers account for only a small portion of this trade, and most of them are Chinese. The chicoms market their prisoner organ wares heavily through the Chinese diaspora.
If it was legal sell one’s own organs, and subject to reasonable regulations, most of these abuses would stop.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.