The Black shop in Human Organs

There is an hidden market for human organs worldwide.

Reports have surfaced of Brits willing to sell internal organs to the highest bidder. 60,000 British pounds for a kidney, 20,000 for a liver and 20,000 for a cornea.

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The middle men normally touch potential clients via the internet. There are precisely sites where people can post organs for sale. A meeting is then arranged if the client appears willing to go straight through with the procedure.

People who agree to sell their organs may think selling a liver in order to renovate the house. Poor families desperate to send a son or daughter to university, might be equally tempted. One man said he was doing it to buy a home for relatives back in Pakistan.

Even though buying and selling organs is illegal in most countries, there is a successful black market worldwide.

Bizarre though it seems, organ selling has become the way-to-get-ahead for some people. In poorer nations such as the Philippines, Togo and Bangladesh there is a large market in human organs. It is also an hidden trend in the Us, Australia and France.

In China it has a sinister aspect. The authorities have been accused of harvesting the organs of prisoners. Some of the organs were taken from executed prisoners. The British Transplantation community blew the whistle on this institution as evidence accumulated. For example the suspicious speed with which the Chinese were able to furnish organs that matched the needs of patients, suggested that prisoners were being pre-selected prior to their executions. Chinese authorities have admitted that some organs had precisely been harvested from executed prisoners, but claim it took place with permission and in only a small estimate of cases.

There is a big inquire for organs. In the Uk - National health service records show that more than 8,000 Brits are waiting for organ transplants. Fewer than 3,000 procedures are carried out each year. The need is also high in the Us. It is estimated that roughly 10 American patients die each day while waiting for an organ.

I guess finally it's a person's choice, but you have to wonder how the removal of an organ effects the long term health prognosis. A surgeon who was asked about this, said there is one in 3,000 opening of a man who donates a kidney dying after the operation. For a liver it is one in 200.

There is also an ethical concern when the poor begin to feel pressured to sell organs in order to plainly survive. Unfortunately in many countries the lack of enforcement means that these transactions can take place with very small valid scrutiny.

Personally I would rather be poor and all of one piece.

The Black shop in Human Organs

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