Call for organ trafficking ban

[okarol]

Call for organ trafficking ban

Last Modified: 04 Jul 2008
Source: PA News

Experts from 78 countries around the world have signed a declaration calling for a total ban on organ trafficking and transplant tourism.

The 152 transplant specialists, including representatives from the UK, US, France, India and China, agreed on the proposal at a summit in Istanbul, Turkey.

Although the Istanbul Declaration has no legal authority, it is expected to be highly influential.

Shady deals mainly involving the sale of kidneys are believed to be soaring in number because of an international shortage of suitable transplant organs.

Organ trafficking is said to account for around 10% of the nearly 70,000 kidney transplants performed worldwide each year. Some estimates put the annual number of trafficked kidneys as high as 15,000.

China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Brazil, the Philippines, Moldova, and Romania are among the world's leading providers of trafficked organs. All apart from Romania had participants at the Istanbul summit.

Like drug trafficking, the trade involves exploitation and big money. Organ brokers reportedly charge between £50,000 and £100,000 to organise a transplant for a wealthy patient. Donors, who are frequently impoverished and ill-educated, may receive as little as £500 in return for losing one of their kidneys.

Transplant tourism, the flip-side to trafficking, involves patients travelling abroad to obtain transplant organs that are not available in their home country.

Published in the latest issue of The Lancet medical journal, the Istanbul Declaration says: "Organ trafficking and transplant tourism violate the principles of equity, justice and respect for human dignity and should be prohibited."

The Declaration urges governments to outlaw advertising and other practises that might promote or encourage the organ trade. In addition to a large number of other proposals, it asks governments to do all they can to increase the supply of legitimate transplant organs within their own borders.

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/health/call+for+organ+trafficking+ban/2316302

[stauffenberg]

To be consistent, this organization should call for international sanctions against Israel and Iran, where domestic law allows renal patients to pay for organ donors through the government.

These calls for bans on the international organ trade are always supplemented by calls for increases in the supply of donor organs, which we have been hearing constantly for the last 30 years with absolutely no effect.  So you have to assume that there will be no increase in donor organs without some financial incentives, which implies that if you forbid these incentives, you endorse genocide against the entire population of dialysis patients.  How ethical is that?