--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Several of us had the beginnings of a talk in chat
> last week on black market
> body parts and the upswing in people selling off
> parts of their bodies. There
> is going to be a "Talk of the Nation"/afternoon NPR
> discussion on this today.
> I think I might be glad I am working through that
> time. It might be a
> reality, but oh g, there is enough heart ache in
> families that help relatives
> never mind those that feel it is the only thing they
> have to sell.
I didn't know about that program, so missed it, but
here are a few articles that detail some of the
problems and ethical dilemmas of paid (but sometimes
not - as in the case of executed Chinese prisoners)
organ transplant, and the distribution of donated
organs when the demand far outstrips the supply.
South Africa, India, Brazil, Peru - and a Florida man
to be tried for plotting "to sell human body parts for
profit." For someone to be so desperate that they
feel they must sell part of their own body is tragic;
for someone to buy it is at best morally suspect; for
doctors to perform it violates the precept of "first
do no harm" - at least, IMO.
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1134/n8_v107/21191220/p1/article.jhtml?term=
"...The United States has a well-organized national
distribution system for organs and a law, at least on
the books, that requires hospitals to solicit the
organs of dead people by requesting permission from
their next of kin. Despite these efforts, nearly
50,000 people are currently on waiting lists for
various organs. Worldwide, the medical community's
persistent emphasis on the scarcity of organs has, if
anything, exacerbated the desperate search for them.
Faced with long waiting lists, candidates cross
borders and enter unorthodox agreements for
transplants--agreements often made without provision
for vital follow-up care. The scarcity, however, may
represent a need that can never be satisfied, for
underlying it is the unprecedented possibility of
extending life indefinitely via the organs of
others--in other words, the denial and refusal of
death...
"...Ten years ago, Cohen says, townspeople responded
with revulsion and alarm when they first learned,
through newspapers, of kidney sales in the cities of
Bombay and Madras. Today, some of the same people
speak matter-of-factly about how it might be necessary
to sell a "spare" organ. Some of them have told Cohen
they can no longer complain about the fate of a
dowryless daughter. "Haven't you got a spare kidney?"
an unsympathetic neighbor is likely to respond...
"...Before 1983, transplant surgeons in South Africa
were not obligated by law to ask a family for its
consent before harvesting organs and tissues from
cadavers. And the 1983 Organ and Tissue Act allows
"appropriate" officials to remove needed organs and
tissues without consent when "reasonable attempts" to
locate the potential donor's next of kin have failed.
But as one state pathologist explained to me, some
doctors and coroners use this authority to harvest
prized organs immediately...
"...Brazil recently passed a radical law designating
the state as "owner" and arbiter of dead bodies. The
law, in effect since January, makes all adults
universal donors at death, unless they declare
themselves "nondonors" by requesting new identity
cards or drivers' licenses officially stamped, "I am
not a donor for organs or tissues..."
[Is this still the law, Alberto, or has it been
changed? This was written in 1998.]
"..."Compensated gifting"--whereby living donors
(relatives included) are paid by recipients for
organs--is accepted by some transplant surgeons as an
ethically neutral practice...
"...The line between "bought" and "gifted" organs is
indeed fuzzy, and considerable pressure can be exerted
on vulnerable family members to volunteer as donors.
Dr. C, a transplant surgeon in me state of Bahia, told
one of my research assistants of a young woman whose
brother threatened to kill her if she refused to give
him a kidney; the doctor had not known of the threat
at the time of the transplant...
"...Chinese-born Harry Wu, who heads the Laogai
Research Foundation in California, was among the first
to reveal the sale of executed prisoners' organs. He
and other human rights activists claim the Chinese
government sanctions the removal of organs from the
bodies of at least 2,000 executed prisoners each year,
and that the number is growing because the list of
capital crimes in China has been expanded to
accommodate the demand for organs. In 1995, task force
leader David Rothman visited hospitals in Beijing and
Shanghai, where he interviewed surgeons and
administrators; he is among those convinced that what
lies behind China's new anticrime
