Transplant Surgery abroad is not the same in every country

[Epoman]

Geoffcamp,  You said
     "Just give me the facts here.  I am not going to spend more money out of my own pocket to take that trip without having all the facts.  I can find data on everything related to transplants in the US, Canada, and the UK on the internet.  Why on earth would i want to spend money on a trip to the  Philippines when that data should be available before I make a trip to see if it would be safe for me to consider??  What are you afraid of?? "
   My commission for one thing. I would rather you not get the transplant here, using my information with me sidelined.
     I think this is not for you, because our patients need to pay a down payment of 40,000. prior to getting the Doctor/ Hospital name and address. 
    The US / UK hospital are dealing with a long waiting list but give out the hospital name however its fairly useless because they are missing the kidney.

I tried to stay out of this thread for as long as possible, but "Mitch" this comment you made really concerns me.

"because our patients need to pay a down payment of 40,000. prior to getting the Doctor/ Hospital name and address."

So you are saying you require a $40,000 USD down payment before the patient knows who the doctor is or where the hospital is? What kind of business deal is that? To me it sounds like a "Dark Alley" deal. Let me guess it has to be CASH right so there is no paper trail? Why the secrecy? If you are legitimate and want people to put their lives in your hands why do you do business this way?

- Epoman

[Rerun]

Yeah, if it is legal in the Philippians why the secrecy.  It may not be legal in the US, but my understanding was it was in the Philippians.

[geoffcamp]

Well Mitch I think you are finally telling the truth.  This is no humanitarian effort to save, prolong or ,make people's life's better in any way shape or form.  You did not like the terms "black market" or "broker" when the were used to refer to you or your business.  Well in fact that is exactly what you are.  The dictionary defines black market as such:

NOUN: 1. The illegal business of buying or selling goods or currency in violation of restrictions such as price controls or rationing. 2. A place where these illegal operations are carried on. 
OTHER FORMS: black-market (blkmärkt) —ADJECTIVE
black-market·er, black-market·eer (-märk-tîr) —NOUN
black-market·eering —NOUN

Sounds to me just like what you are doing as you described in your own words so YOU are the black market for organ buying.

The dictionary defines broker as such:

NOUN: 1. One that acts as an agent for others, as in negotiating contracts, purchases, or sales in return for a fee or commission. 2. A stockbroker. 3. A power broker. 

Again by that definition your ARE in fact a broker correct?

Let's face it this is all a scam so you and a select few (hopefully) doctors can make a lot of money from desperate suffering people.  And those desperate suffering people are the patients and their families you try to sucker into these black market deals and the poor suffering donors and their families and the family tree for future generations that you sucker into believing you can provide a way out of the extreme poverty the live in everyday.  I don't know how you sleep at night knowing how take advantage of all the parties involved.  You sugar coated it as long as you could with your ethical debate on whether buying organs should be leagal until you were pushed for actual facts then the REAL truth came out.  It is all about money!  Well I do understand now and you are right this is not for me. 
 
 

[geoffcamp]

The reason they don't broker kidneys in the United States is they can make more money from dialysis.  But, no one currently on this site can afford $40,000 for a kidney (IMO) in the Philippines.  Hey, even if they did it here (in the US) no one could afford $140,000 to buy a kidney.  Now, the homeless who would sell a kidney for $10,000 here in the US wouldn't pass the physical. 

I'm for "Kidney Farmer's Markets" myself.  Those that can afford it can do it.  The rest would just be organ donation and I think the government should give them a tax break if they have the misfortune of an accident but leave their organs here. 

The only way it will become legal here in the US is if there is sales tax!!

Rerun,

I can not believe what I read!  Who makes money from dialysis vs. transplantation??  Certainly not Medicare or our private insurance companies.. I agree ther are some very large corporations out there making money from dialysis but it certainly has nothing to do with why the US does not broker kidneys!  Please explain to me how this works.  I know that Medicare pushes transplantation in order to save dialysis costs so if "brokering" was an ethical money saving alternative I am sure it would be used!  And you are dead wrong!  Don't presume to know anyone else's financial situation here on this board.  I in fact have a successful business and come from a wealth family and I could come up with 140K with no problem but it is wrong and illegal to do so.

"I'm for "Kidney Farmer's Markets" myself.  Those that can afford it can do it.  The rest would just be organ donation and I think the government should give them a tax break if they have the misfortune of an accident but leave their organs here. "

I have no idea what you are saying here!  Are you actually saying that you are for being able to buy an organ in the US???  Do you have any idea of how many people would suffer and die so the rich could live??  If you could go to the hospital and buy the organs of recently deceased or recruit people to sell their organs there would be none left over for those who could not afford to buy one.  So you would remain on there list and dialysis for much longer periods of time because all the organs would be going to those that can afford to buy one!  I do agree we should in some way compensate living and deceased donors in some way.  I hope in the future we put a plan into place to do that in some manner.

And "sales tax"?  How on earth would that solve the problem??  you will have to explain that to me.

I have seen some valid reasons for pondering making organ sales legal but I am at a loss at to the reasons why you think this is a good idea.  You are definitely entitled to your opinion but I just don't think you have truly thought this out!  Maybe you can explain it to me better and I will see your point.

[Zach]

Well Mitch I think you are finally telling the truth.  This is no humanitarian effort to save, prolong or ,make people's life's better in any way shape or form.  You did not like the terms "black market" or "broker" when the were used to refer to you or your business.  Well in fact that is exactly what you are.

Ding ... Ding ... Ding ... Ding ... Ding ... Ding!!!!

[mallory]

It may suprise you but the local population here does not want you, better off Americans, coming here for transplants, while they can't even afford dialysis.
  

No, it doesn't surprise me that people in the Philippines may resent wealthy foreigners coming to the Philippines for transplants from their impoverished citizens who cannot afford dialysis.  That's the point, this is reprehensible exploitation and I for one, will not support it. 

Mitch, If you are from the Philippines, why would you want to do this to people in your own country?  Do you have no conscience?

Stauffenberg,  I can only assume that if you are not Mitch, you are on his payroll. 

Both of you, go peddle your wares someplace else.  Look for a new website, maybe you can do a search for something like "ESRD patients with no ethics" or "wealthy ESRD patients willing to exploit others for their own gain".

[angieskidney]

While some countries make the sale of organs for transplant illegal, there are many which do not.  Some countries' laws make it illegal for their citizens to travel abroad for a purchased transplant from a live donor, but other countries restrict such paid donations only within their borders.  The constitutions of many nations do not permit them to legislate extraterritorially, so they cannot regulate what their citizens do in another country.  Many countries that do make paid organ donations illegal punish violations of these laws with purely tokenal fines, and the vast majority of such jurisdictions never bother enforcing such laws, because the governments are sensible enough to realize that these regulations are unjust, and are just needed to pander to the outrage of the uninformed populace.

Why are you trying to sell organs to people in countries where it IS ILLEGAL?? Why not stick to countries where it IS legal instead of harrassing us?

Sandman keeps harping on the point that the transplant is not a cure for renal failure, but the statistics showing the increase in life expectancy for transplant patients over dialysis patients make a transplant worth $70,000, don't they?  And remember, we haven't even started to consider here the vast improvement in energy, clarity of thought, freedom to travel easily and to organize your time as you desire, freedom from dietary and fluid restrictions, and elimination of all the many deleterious health effects that arise from staying on dialysis, such as rapidlly accelerated arteriosclerosis, neurological disease, bone disease, etc.

I have HAD a transplant! I KNOW how a person feels with a kidney! BUT the fact remains that it IS only temporary and NOT a cure! Or else what the hell am I doing back on dialysis now for the last 5 years?? Huh?

Geoffcamp,  You said
     "Just give me the facts here.  I am not going to spend more money out of my own pocket to take that trip without having all the facts.  I can find data on everything related to transplants in the US, Canada, and the UK on the internet.  Why on earth would i want to spend money on a trip to the  Philippines when that data should be available before I make a trip to see if it would be safe for me to consider??  What are you afraid of?? "
   My commission for one thing. I would rather you not get the transplant here, using my information with me sidelined.
     I think this is not for you, because our patients need to pay a down payment of 40,000. prior to getting the Doctor/ Hospital name and address. 
    The US / UK hospital are dealing with a long waiting list but give out the hospital name however its fairly useless because they are missing the kidney.

I tried to stay out of this thread for as long as possible, but "Mitch" this comment you made really concerns me.

"because our patients need to pay a down payment of 40,000. prior to getting the Doctor/ Hospital name and address."

So you are saying you require a $40,000 USD down payment before the patient knows who the doctor is or where the hospital is? What kind of business deal is that? To me it sounds like a "Dark Alley" deal. Let me guess it has to be CASH right so there is no paper trail? Why the secrecy? If you are legitimate and want people to put their lives in your hands why do you do business this way?

- Epoman

VERY good point!!

Well Mitch I think you are finally telling the truth.  This is no humanitarian effort to save, prolong or ,make people's life's better in any way shape or form.  You did not like the terms "black market" or "broker" when the were used to refer to you or your business.  Well in fact that is exactly what you are.

Ding ... Ding ... Ding ... Ding ... Ding ... Ding!!!!

Finally it is coming out.

It may suprise you but the local population here does not want you, better off Americans, coming here for transplants, while they can't even afford dialysis.
  

No, it doesn't surprise me that people in the Philippines may resent wealthy foreigners coming to the Philippines for transplants from their impoverished citizens who cannot afford dialysis.  That's the point, this is reprehensible exploitation and I for one, will not support it. 

Mitch, If you are from the Philippines, why would you want to do this to people in your own country?  Do you have no conscience?

Mitch still doesn't seem to realize why we are so against it but it is obvious and is as plain as day! We don't want to do something illegal that might jeoperdize our health and the future of our care! Also we would feel guilty taking good kidneys away from dialysis patients in the Philippines! They need it more than we do! We have good care in all of our own countries!

[stauffenberg]

Epoman must realize that there are obvious reasons why Mitch cannot be completely forthcoming.  In many jurisdictions there are legal problems with even helping someone to get in contact with physicians who can provide a live donor, even if you do not recruit the donor yourself, as Mitch does not, so he is not an 'organ broker' in that sense.  Organ Watch, an organization of self-righteous, meddlesome people who understand nothing of the plight of renal patients and who could care less, also try to cause trouble for foreign transplant facilitators who are too open about their service and its details.  Finally and most importantly, Mitch earns his commission by having researched the available facilties in the Philippines thoroughly and by having made arrangements with local surgeons and hospitals to perform transplants for his clients.  If potential clients knew all the details of his program in advance, they could simply get in touch with these hospitals and surgeons on their own, making their own arrangements with them, which would cheat Mitch out of the commission he deserves for all the work he has done in setting up his program. 

From what I have seen during my trip to the Philippines, once the client has made his down payment and has arrived at the hospital in the Philippines,and has  gotten to know all the nephrologists and surgeons, he is already fully integrated into the system and could make his own deal then and there to get a transplant.  However, since the surgeons would try to cheat the patient and get more money out of him than their real costs and fees deserve, it is important for the patient to continue to act through Mitch, whose wide contacts with the medical community in the Philippines permit him to keep the surgeons' costs in line with the deal Mitch has made with the patient.  He can do this, as the surgeons well know, by taking the patient to another surgeon who will cooperate, so this system keeps the money-grabbers in line, which a lone patient, unfamiliar with the Philippines, could not manage on his own.

I am sure Geoff realizes that a program can be both money-making and life-saving at the same time; after all, that is what ordinary medicine is in countries which allow private remuneration of physicians, isn't it?  As for the theory that the donors are exploited, I do not understand how paying them enough money to escape their desperate poverty by giving up a surplus kidney that they can live a normal life expectancy without amounts to exploiting them rather than, as it seems to me, rescuing them.  It is easy to make the mistake of assuming that the dire poverty in the Philippines, which is in fact caused by the international economic system, is somehow the fault of the kidney patient, when in fact the kidney patient is helping to rescue the poor person from his greatest problem, for a deal which not only the poor person finds an advantageous trade-off for himself, but also which the transplant hospital ethical committee, consisting of a nephrologist, a psychiatrist, and a Roman Catholic priest also finds advantageous for him.  It is also a culturally accepted, normal practice in the Philippines to sell an organ to escape desperate poverty, since this is the way 95% of kidney transplants among the Filipinos themselves take place.  Ask yourself this question: would the situation of the person who wants to sell his kidney be improved if we took away this 'exploitation' and told him that even though he found this trade-off advantageous for himself, we were not only going to forbid him to exercise his own free will, because we are wise people from the First World and he is a stupid Third World resident, but also, we are then not going to do a single thing, ever, to make his poverty any better!  So he stays poor in a country with no social safety net, and as a result he runs a higher risk of health problems and premature death than if he sold his kidney!  Remember, the US $7000 he gets is 3.5 times the average yearly salary in the Philippines, which allows the donor to buy himself a small business, such as a little store, and keep himself employed for the rest of his life, in a country where the unemployment rate is not 5%, as in the US, but 25%.

I met two kidney donors, but only spoke at length with one, who described to me how he was able with the payment to send his two young children to primary school and pay off the mortgage on his house.  He was unemployed at the time, so he suddenly had a chance he would normally never have had.  His wife was also eager to become an organ donor herself, having seen her husband's experience and found it such a good deal for the entire family.

The best program would be for organ sale from medically fit living donors to be legal in Western countries with the government the only legal purchaser of the organs.  These would then be distributed according to medical need to those on the waiting list.  But that sensible plan will never be adopted, because the majority of people, who hardly know what a kidney is or does, look at some article about paid organ transplants, react with uninformed disgust, and so would never permit it.

Mallory should know that the overwhelming majority of Filipinos who get kidney transplants buy them from other Filipinos with money that they get from their relatives working, usually as nurses, in Western countries.  When I first arrived in the Philippines I thought I would have to be very careful about saying anything about organ purchases, but to my surprise, everyone, from the dialysis staff to the doctors, from the other dialysis patients to the patients at the renal transplant follow-up center, said the same thing: "Oh, you must be here to buy a kidney transplant!"  In the Phillipines this is considered a normal, everyday thing to do, since almost no one ever gets a kidney transplant other than by buying it, and the Filipinos are a very friendly people who appreciate the foreign money coming into their country with the transplant business and never think of it as immoral, which is a Western idea.

I am sorry that Angie's kidney did not last longer, but by arranging a transplant from a live donor well in advance, the Philippine doctors can sort through the HLA data on a large pool of potential donors and select a very good, often a three HLA group match with the all-important DR site, for the overseas client.  A well-matched organ from a living donor with a three-point match should normally last for around 15 to 20 years.

[mallory]

2It may suprise you but the local population here does not want you, better off Americans, coming here for transplants, while they can't even afford dialysis.
 

I'm not the one who said Filipinos resent Americans for coming there for transplants, Mitch said it.  I just agreed with him.  I still agree with him.  I still think this is exploitation and that the practice is deplorable.

[angieskidney]

As for the theory that the donors are exploited, I do not understand how paying them enough money to escape their desperate poverty by giving up a surplus kidney that they can live a normal life expectancy without amounts to exploiting them rather than, as it seems to me, rescuing them. 

That is the thing ... I don't see any kidney as a "surplus kidney!"

Ask yourself this question: would the situation of the person who wants to sell his kidney be improved if we took away this 'exploitation' and told him that even though he found this trade-off advantageous for himself, we were not only going to forbid him to exercise his own free will, because we are wise people from the First World and he is a stupid Third World resident, but also, we are then not going to do a single thing, ever, to make his poverty any better! So he stays poor in a country with no social safety net, and as a result he runs a higher risk of health problems and premature death than if he sold his kidney!

You make me tired going over the same thing time and time again. I am poor too but that doesn't mean I will die early. You make it sound like they don't need that kidney so why don't we relieve them of the burden of that extra kidney and make them have a sweet little rags to riches story. Maybe I should sell off an organ and make myself a little rags to riches story too! 

When I first arrived in the Philippines I thought I would have to be very careful about saying anything about organ purchases, but to my surprise, everyone, from the dialysis staff to the doctors, from the other dialysis patients to the patients at the renal transplant follow-up center, said the same thing: "Oh, you must be here to buy a kidney transplant!" In the Phillipines this is considered a normal, everyday thing to do, since almost no one ever gets a kidney transplant other than by buying it, and the Filipinos are a very friendly people who appreciate the foreign money coming into their country with the transplant business and never think of it as immoral, which is a Western idea.

I am sorry that Angie's kidney did not last longer, but by arranging a transplant from a live donor well in advance, the Philippine doctors can sort through the HLA data on a large pool of potential donors and select a very good, often a three HLA group match with the all-important DR site, for the overseas client. A well-matched organ from a living donor with a three-point match should normally last for around 15 to 20 years.

Didn't Mitch just say that the Philippines didn't want rich Americans there? Yet here you say the exact opposite. Sounds fishy to me.

Yes it only lasted 11 years and was a near-perfect match, but you are telling me my next one should last 15-20 years? Bull Crap! Anyone knows that with subsequent transplant that there are more antigens so the chance for the transplant lasting longer, much less, as long, as the last transplant is not very good odds! You are raising high hopes only for them to be dashed in the future! What kind of way is that to make business??

[stauffenberg]

I did not say to Angie that if she were to get another kidney transplant it would necessarily last for 15-20 years.  What I in fact said was that "a" kidney which is a three-point match with the DR HLA group from a living donor can generally be expected to last that long. Obviously a patient who has had previous transplants, and thus who has a higher percentage of pre-formed antibodies, will have more difficulty with successive transplants, but this makes the option of buying a kidney from a live donor all the more important, since you will need to sift through a larger population to find someone who passes the cross-matching test with you, and this you can only do if your surgeon can select from a large number of potential donors, rather than just have to wait for the right cadaver kidney to show up some day by luck.

My experience in the Philippines was that everyone was extremely friendly with me, even when they knew I was investigating the purchasing of kidney transplants.  I was dialyzed at two different hospitals while I was there, and of all the staff and patients there who got to know me, no one ever said that they thought that foreigners buying organs for transplant was a bad thing.  Mitch may have had a different experience, but the reaction of other people is always a matter of subjective judgment.  Maybe now, by the way, you will start to believe that Mitch and I are not the same person, since we do not always agree with each other.

Given that all the medical studies show that the life expectancy and health of live kidney donors is the same as that for the general population, given the 'intact nephron hypothesis,' which states that, as the number of nephrons declines, the remaining nephrons expand in function to take up the slack, and given that many people are born with only one kidney and never know it, I think we are pretty safe in saying that for a healthy person with no family history of renal disease, the second of two kidneys really is a 'surplus organ' which can safely be donated to someone who has none.  Skeptics might want to have a look at Ingela Fehrman-Ekholm, et al, "No Evidence of Accelerated Loss of Kidney Function in Living Kidney Donors: Results from a Cross-Sectional Follow-Up," Transplantation, vol. 72, no. 3 (August, 2001) 444-449.

[sandman]

Well Mitch I think you are finally telling the truth.  This is no humanitarian effort to save, prolong or ,make people's life's better in any way shape or form.  You did not like the terms "black market" or "broker" when the were used to refer to you or your business.  Well in fact that is exactly what you are.

Ding ... Ding ... Ding ... Ding ... Ding ... Ding!!!!

I was wondering when others were going to catch on.  I was beginning to think I was the only one who spotted that.

[mitchorganbroker]

I for one hope the Americans and the Canooks never wake up and legalize paid donors. You guys will continue running in circles never looking for new possibilities to get the cure (transplant) IMO.
   As for brains in the forum,
I see about three. Stauffenberg,Epoman and Geoffcamp,maybe some others. As for the also ran, which includes me, Angie and Mallory, we need to eat more fish and read more carefully after drinking some coffee. Sandman, forget the fish,just relax and don't worry about anything. Sluff, darn if you don't look like Elvis.
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Epoman, The Surgeons,Transplanting hospitals and the Marketing group(me) do NOT pay, hire, nor contract with each other. We work together but may change partners like at a square dance. When it comes to money, they(Surgeons) would and did push me out of the way to get at the money. They thank me for the refferal but never ask, " Did anybody give you a commission ". The Patient often thinks I work for the Hospital like coordinators  do in the US.
   So, for me to assure getting a commission as well as being able to deliver the transplant surgery at a price I set,
I need to collect the down payment before I say where we are going. I believe this is the usual way with foreign live transplant. Jim Cohan does it like that too. I found out why Pakistani and Indian patients contact me instead of transplanting in their home country. They want good results, thats why.
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geoffcamp,  You must have read the news reports from Organ Watch, etc which criticizes us but they have never reported any poor results in the Philippines,specifically, nor any patient ever being cheated ,even though they pay prior to meeting the doctor.
   The patient pays the remaining balance(30,000) after he meets the Surgeon in the Transplant Hospital. Here is the next supprise. Nobody in the Philippines will accept American checks (takes 45 days to clear+ they take 10% excise tax) Do you like traveling with cash. Those 500 Euro bill (worth $600) make for a thinner bulge than USD.
So ,the balance needs to be paid in cash or though us again. The exception is the labs, Pharmacy and hospital will accept most credit cards but ask for an additional 5 %.
    There is a paper trail. The 40,000. down payment is wired to a bank in the USA. The Brits can wire to a French Bank.
We do not bank in the Philippines , we use safer banks.
________________________________________________________________________________________
   Sandman, do you think that collecting knee jerk reaction is being brain washed or "not the only one catching on " ?

[mitchorganbroker]

Geoffcamp, I am not "one that acts as an agent for others". I simply check the records and bring the patient
to one of many transplant Surgeon. I am not his agent therefore from your definition I do not fit the description of a broker. Not black market cause it's legal. Also I am not the one arranging the donor.
We have tried to use US/Canadian lawyers who usually run scared.

We are willing to use a Two Lawyer Approach. One American - One Philippino. If you can find a US lawyer to represent you . See how fast he throws you out of his office, as soon as you say " Sir can you be my lawyer so I can get a Philippine Transplant by contract, with him holding the money in his escrow account, until the Philippine lawyer checks out the transplant hospital ."   
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Rerun, Yes its legal but I am not foolish enough to work for free but we can use a Two Lawyer approach. 
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Mallory, what are you talking about. What practice is deplorable.? Letting them get 3years of salary for a donation of bean -------
-----------------------------
Zach, You spotted something ? Hang in there and spot more stuff for fluff.
-----------------------------------------
Angie,   Why do you keep posting this lie     "Why are you trying to sell organs to people in countries where it IS ILLEGAL??" Does our web site speak of arranging transplants or selling organs ? Read again www.liver4you.org
and then post your apology to the forum members for trying to mislead them.   
 "Why not stick to countries where it IS legal instead of harrassing us?" I Am talking about a legal Transplant Surgery to people who say they hate dialysis. How is that harassment ?
I live here and Stauffenberg had a short visit with nice people helping him. Sounds fishy to you,then eat more fish.

[stauffenberg]

I am not sure what great discovery Zach, Geoff, and Sandman believe they have made when they keep pointing out that Mitch's program is not a charity but is a profit-making enterprise.  Every single private medical service in the world, from the United States to the Philippines, is simultaneously a profit-making operation for the physican offering it and a humanitarian benefit for the patient receiving it.  There is absolutey no logical consistency in a service being both at the same time.  Mitch never claimed to be operating a charity, and although he once tried to get a transplant for a patient for free, this turned out not to be possible because the Philippine doctors and hospitals would not also donate their services.  And just because a service is offered as a profit-making enterprise, there is no logical reason why it cannot also be honest, efficient, and genuine.

[mitchorganbroker]

Using Lawyers adds trust and security but takes longer  for Transplant Surgery . Speak about a paper trail.
I think that we can have a Two Lawyer solution to make it happen.
An international network of 4500 lawyers should work out for us.
 http://www.iln.com/Members_Search_Res_Country.asp?c=USA&s=
You hold your own money. The American lawyer, who you pick from the
 list does not get to hold your money. Neither does my lawyer.
  You hold it.
    The steps that we take :
  1)  You sends us medical records to 1-888-716-4953 or as e-mail
    attachments
 
  2) We review the reports and bring the reports to the transplant
    team.
 
  3)  The Transplant team Nephrologist, gives an appointment date on
   paper . He also is in charge of  the dialysis. The Surgeon will
   be seeing you as the Nephrologist completes his medical exams.
 
  4)  My lawyer in the Philippines who belongs to the same
 International Lawyer Network she contacts the Hospital and Doctors                                     
   to confirm  the the Transplant team has given an
   appointment date in the transplant hospital for you.  This lawyer
   checks on the Hospital and the Doctors as well as confirming the
  Transplant team appointment, but keeps confidential the doctor/hospital contact
   details.
 
  5) You pick an American lawyer, who is part of the same
  International Network of Lawyers.His task should be to advice you
   on the honesty and trustfulness from the work of the Philippine
 lawyer from the same network of lawyers. As well as any other
  independant checking that you want him to do.

  This International Lawyer Network has a Board of Directors, in New York who the
  you and your lawyer can also contact.
 
  6) You wire us $45,000, down payment only if you are satisfied with
   your network Lawyer's opinion as well the confirmation of
     your appointment with the Transplant team.
 
  7)  Then you all fly to Manila and you would be responsible to
  bring or send the remaining balance. We make all the arrangements
  needed in the Philippines.
 
 (WE HAVE NOT YET USED  ILN SO DON"T CALL EXPECTING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT US OR TRANSPLANTS)
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[angieskidney]

Angie,   Why do you keep posting this lie     "Why are you trying to sell organs to people in countries where it IS ILLEGAL??" Does our web site speak of arranging transplants or selling organs ? Read again www.liver4you.org
and then post your apology to the forum members for trying to mislead them.   
 "Why not stick to countries where it IS legal instead of harrassing us?" I Am talking about a legal Transplant Surgery to people who say they hate dialysis. How is that harassment ?
I live here and Stauffenberg had a short visit with nice people helping him. Sounds fishy to you,then eat more fish.

I didn't check the site out myself due to mistrust but Sandman checked it out out of couriosity.  But I am strictly going by what is said in the 3 forums that I know you are allowed to post in. (The most being said here). If we are to accept this with open arms than why are "US/Canadian lawyers....run(ning) scared" Everyone knows that Lawyers are never afraid of anything if they can make money! Are you saying it is NOT illegal here? What lie am I saying? You are going from site to site trying to convince everyone to buy kidneys in the Philippines as if the kidneys there would be a better match and easier to come by then anyone's own country. Am I right? Or am I wrong? Please correct me if I am wrong because I am just trying to understand this.

I am not sure what great discovery Zach, Geoff, and Sandman believe they have made when they keep pointing out that Mitch's program is not a charity but is a profit-making enterprise. Every single private medical service in the world, from the United States to the Philippines, is simultaneously a profit-making operation for the physican offering it and a humanitarian benefit for the patient receiving it. There is absolutey no logical consistency in a service being both at the same time. Mitch never claimed to be operating a charity, and although he once tried to get a transplant for a patient for free, this turned out not to be possible because the Philippine doctors and hospitals would not also donate their services. And just because a service is offered as a profit-making enterprise, there is no logical reason why it cannot also be honest, efficient, and genuine.

That makes sense.

[stauffenberg]

There are two main reasons why it is better to get a live donor transplant in the Philippines rather than waiting for a cadaver organ in your own country.  First, a live donor transplant can be performed in the Philippines within about a month of you making arrangements with Mitch, while in a Western country you typically have to wait many years for a cadaver kidney, during which time you run a higher than normal risk of death, your health declines, and you may become so ill that you will find yourself dropped from the transplant list as medically ineligible.  Second, if you wait for a cadaver organ to show up in your home country, the survival of the organ will be compromised by the fact that it comes from a cadaver, that the typical cadaver from which it has come will be an older person and so have less efficient renal function, and that the organ may well not be very closely matched to you, since the waiting lists are so long that transplant centers are now using organs with two, one, or even zero HLA matches, just to clear people off the waiting list.  Sometimes even medically substandard, moderately unhealthy organs are now being used because the waiting times are getting so long and the number of patients is growing so much faster than the supply of organs.

But in the Philippines, your transplant surgeon can pick just the right match for you from among a large number of live donors who have already volunteered.  This allows him to get you a kidney which is 1) healthier because it comes from a live donor; 2) a better match for you, often a 3-point match with the DR group; 3) from a donor who has had to pass a high standard of overall health and excellent renal function -- rather than just any old cadaver that happened to land in the hospital with a donor card in its pocket and no relatives to object to the donation.

[angieskidney]

a better match for you, often a 3-point match with the DR group; 3) from a donor who has had to pass a high standard of overall health and excellent renal function -- rather than just any old cadaver that happened to land in the hospital with a donor card in its pocket and no relatives to object to the donation.

You make it sound like the don't test cadaver kidneys but they DO!

[Zach]

But in the Philippines, your transplant surgeon can pick just the right match for you from among a large number of live donors who have already volunteered.

Are these young live donors volunteers or are they paid.  This story keeps on changing, as do the facts.

[paris]

Re: Sluff looking like Elvis - - does Mitch not recognize that picture?   Couldn't trust anyone who doesn't know who that is!  

[stauffenberg]

Angie, of course they check for Landsteiner blood groups, Rhesus blood groups, HLA groups, and perform the cross-matching in all Western countries as well as in the Philippines before they perform an organ transplant.  But the huge difference is, if you are waiting for a scarce cadaver organ to become available in a Western country, you have to wait a long time before the right one becomes available.  As transplant coordinators become more and more concerned about the fact that the number of people on the transplant waiting list is growing much faster than the number of organs available for donation, the pressure on them is very great to try to get people off the transplant list by offering them less than perfect matches.  In the United States it is current United Organ Sharing Network policy to allow surgeons the discretion to transplant cadaver organs with 2, 1, or absolutely no matching HLA groups, which makes for a very much shorter life expectancy for the organ.  Some centers are even using organs which are medically of marginal suitability, such as from people older than the normal cut-off age, people with a history of hypertension, diabetes, or with non-metastisizing cancers which can be excised from the kidney before transplantation.  But you avoid all of this in the Philippines, where the supply of organs vastly exceeds the demand, so your surgeon can pick the very best one for you.

Zach, since our whole conversation over the last six webpages has been about the ethics of paid organ donation, I assumed we all understand that the live donors in the Philippines are paid for their donation.  The usage has developed in the medical literature of calling such people 'paid donors,' although technically they are not really 'donating,' since they get paid.  Etymologically this usage may well be justified, since the Latin 'donare,' from which our 'donate' arises, can mean either to 'give' in the sense of 'hand over' something, or to 'give' in the sense of 'make a gift of something.'

[Sluff]

Re: Sluff looking like Elvis - - does Mitch not recognize that picture?   Couldn't trust anyone who doesn't know who that is!  

Shit I've been made. And you all thought I died.

[sandman]

Re: Sluff looking like Elvis - - does Mitch not recognize that picture?   Couldn't trust anyone who doesn't know who that is!  

Shit I've been made. And you all thought I died.

LOOK EVERYONE!  ELVIS LIVES !!!   

Sorry, just saw a opportunity to lighten the tensions here. 

[angieskidney]

But you avoid all of this in the Philippines, where the supply of organs vastly exceeds the demand, so your surgeon can pick the very best one for you.

What about all those people who live there who are dying on dialysis while they WAIT for a kidney there??  Or do you mean the supply exceeds the demand of people who can afford to buy?