Organleggers! (Larry Niven)

[Dave]

THIS IS SCIENCE FICTION:

In the Known Space Books in the 22nd Century the biggest problem for the United Nations World Government is the Organ bank problem. The Earths population is huge, people live well over 100 years and the birth rate has also fallen, cures for diseases and other medical advances have continued. The demand for organs and limbs for use in spare part surgery becomes so acute that people are murdered and body parts are stolen to order. It is the job of the UN Police force, the ARM to control this.
Eventually criminals are executed and used for transplants, for increasingly minor offences.
Execution for transplants makes jails obsolete.

THIS IS THE YEAR 2001, TODAY:

A boy in Russia is narrowly saved from being sold by his aunt, to be murdered, and his organs used for transplants. (Sky News, CNN)

During the Chinese New Year celebrations each year, large numbers of criminals are executed, their bodies have parts removed and sold in local hospitals for operations. People travel from all over Asia to China to have these operations. (BBC)

Alder Hey and Birmingham Childrens Hospitals in Britain have removed Thymus glands from live children during Heart operations and given them, without consent, to pharmacutical companies, in return for "donations". (BBC and all British National Newspapers)

British Government Minister Alan Milburn to make a statement that this has been common practice in most NHS hospitals but that the law will be tightened to ensure consent.

Tissue Banks in USA that were once local non-profit organizations have been turned into billion dollar corporations. Although selling tissue is against the law ie. veins, bones, skin and blood, unlike lifesaving organ donations, donations of tissue are not tightly regulated. Companies are allowed to charge high service fees for collecting, processing, administration and shipping the tissue instead of for the tissue itself. (CBS news)

The illegal trade in cloned body parts and genetically engineered children has been identified by an elite British police squad as a future market for organised crime.
Robert Hall, the head of analysis at a research unit of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, said "Genetic commerce has a very lucrative potencial not only for the scientists but for the unscrupulous practitioner or criminal who wishes to make easy money. At its simplest there is the organised criminal who sells illegally aquired, genetically engineered body parts. At the more complex, there is the bogus agent offering gene therepy to the unwary or desperate parent, or even customizing genetic changes into a newly conceived child. (Medicalpost.com)

One human body can be worth $100,000 in parts.

The population is aging, demand is steadily increasing to repair the bodies of baby boomers.

Families that are happy to donate organs are rarely told and probably never imagine that tissue can also be processed into collagen for wrinkle removal, lip enhancements and other cosmetic procedures.

By 2020, 95% of human body parts could be replaceable by laboratory-grown organs.

It is possible, that it is only the fear of HIV , human BSE and other infections, which has been the break on the growth of this industry.

SO WHAT WILL THE FUTURE REALLY BE LIKE?

Worrying Stuff?

Will Genetic Engineering and Cloning Technology prevent a widespread organ bank problem in the future?

There are some equal moral objections here as well:

Do we really want to grow a cloned foetus of ourselves to use when we get ill? (Its like keeping an old wreck of a car in your garage and stripping it down for parts.)
(Where is 'Igor' when you need him?)

Should it only be the rich that can afford to do this, and hide away some poorer, more unhealthy copy of themselves, to raid for parts in a modern-day version of "The Picture of Dorien Grey"? (Oscar Wilde)

Do we really want factories full of cultured organs growing in vats and testubes?

Do we want to live in a world where you are mugged on a street corner for your liver and kidneys?

(This idea from alt.bio.hackers) What about a large corporation secretly testing it's workers in some third world country for HLA (Human Leukocyte antigens - the so called genetic fingerprints)? They permit only the tissue type matches they need to stay alive and sacrifice them as needed.
All you require is a large workforce, a poor country with a dictatorship and roving death squads, a secret operating theatre, a con game to extort money from the recipients without it getting publicized. Plenty of countries to choose from there, and it could all be achieved by an organized crime syndicate, a secret government agency or a multinational company.

Many people who want to see more lives saved by transplants think this shouldn't be discussed. They want to see a regulated open free market for body parts. Others also want more transplants, but not only for the rich, while the poor get sicker.

Should transplant organs and tissues only be given as charitable donations after consent? Or should dead bodies be seen as a parts locker, and a free market opened up?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
The future is already here!

Read "The Patchwork Girl", "The long ARM of Gil Hamilton", "A gift from Earth" and other tales of Known Space by Larry Niven.
Also Philip K Dick's "We can Build You" and other stories concerning Artiforgs (Artifical Organs).
Also Robin Cook's "Coma" is relevant.

[Edited by david676 on 01-30-2001 at 10:13 AM]

 

[padders]

yup.. scarry stuff. I read one of Robin Cook's books about this but i don't think it was Coma, perhaps there is another one he deals in it as well. Lots of the serialised tv shows seem to pick up on the theme of chinese organ systems every once in a while (not quite sure why it is chinese) i saw one where (this if fiction remember) where a group of people went to a meeting, all got paid $x and then a a card was drawn to see who would have their y organ removed, eyes, kidneys etc...

Yes it is a problem and will be for next 50 years or so but i don't think after that. Organ generation to order is not something i see in any way unlikely. The igor in your basement (ever read chromoson 6 by robin cook.. that is a nice one, using chimps as your surrogate donar etc.. read it) won't be necessary, eyes etc grown in vats.

Ethically i don't see a problem. What is the difference between growing an eye and a skin culture? The "cost" is more likely to be a problem, should only rich people be able to replace their hearts when they get old? i doubt it is something that will be particularly cheap to do when it comes? in the US this dosen't appear to be a large concern with your massive comercalisation of health system but some of the remaining more socialist (well not socialist but more that way) systems would certainly have more problems with refusing to do it if it was possible because it is too expensive.

We shall see what will happen but this is one of certainly the most major bio-ethical problems coming up alongsite ethuanasia, genetic engineering (germline in particular), age extension drugs (when not if) etc.

 

[Dave]

US Doctors Worried as Americans Get Organs of Chinese Inmates
By CRAIG S. SMITH The New York Times

An increasing number of Americans are traveling to China to receive transplanted kidneys, livers, corneas and other body parts from executed Chinese prisoners.

SHANGHAI, Nov. 8 Three years ago, in New York, one of Dr. Thomas Diflo's patients on a long waiting list for a kidney transplant showed up with a new problem: she no longer needed a kidney, but suddenly needed after-transplant care.

"She had just returned from a trip to China and, to my surprise, had undergone a transplant while she was there," said Dr. Diflo, of New York University Medical Center, where he is director of kidney transplants.

The woman, a Chinese-American, was vague about where the kidney had come from, but others who have come to Dr. Diflo for treatment have been more forthcoming, confiding that they got the organs of executed Chinese prisoners.

Kidneys, livers, corneas and other body parts from these prisoners are being transplanted into American citizens or permanent residents who otherwise would have to wait years for organs. Many of the patients come back to the United States for follow-up care, which Medicaid or other government programs pay for.

The transplants in China, which doctors in both countries say are increasing, has presented the American medical establishment with an ethical quandary: Should American doctors treat patients who have received organs from executed prisoners and, if so, would they be tacitly condoning the practice and encouraging more such transplants.

Or should they rebuke patients who, in desperation, participate in a process that mainstream transplant advocates condemn as morally wrong?

"That's a decision that has to be made by each individual physician," said Dr. Thomas McCune, a transplant physician in Norfolk, Va., and chairman of the patient care and education committee of the American Society of Transplantation.

Executed prisoners are China's primary source of transplantable organs, though few of the condemned, if any, consent to having their organs removed, people involved with the process say. Some of the unwitting donors may even be innocent, having been executed as part of a surge of executions propelled by accelerated trials and confessions that sometimes were extracted through torture.

The American transplantation society says that decisions to donate organs must be made freely and without coercion or exploitation of any sort. It opposes any organ donations by prisoners, even to their relatives, because the circumstances of incarceration make it impossible to ensure that the decision is not colored by secondary benefits, like an improved diet, that a prisoner may stand to gain. Donations from death row inmates are even more suspect.

Various initiatives are under way to protest the harvesting of organs from China's prisoners. One bill would bar entry to the United States of any doctors from China who want American transplant training. Chinese transplant specialists now travel freely to the United States to take part in seminars and other activities that help hone their skills.

But American doctors say there is little they can do to stop the flow of prisoner organs to the United States because the Chinese supply is growing just like the American demand.

More transplantable organs are available in China because more people are being executed. This year, 5,000 prisoners or more are likely to be put to death during a nationwide anti-crime drive. Many of them will be stripped of their vital organs, though there is no available data to say how many. Government policy allows the harvesting if the prisoner or the prisoner's family has given written consent, or if the body is not claimed after execution. In practice, though, the rules are often ignored and illegal harvesting tolerated.

Meanwhile, China has made great strides in transplant techniques, having performed 35,000 kidney transplants since its first successful one in 1961. As a result, transplant centers have opened around the country, some with special wards catering to high-paying foreign patients.

Most of the organs are transplanted into Chinese citizens, but a growing number are going into foreigners, particularly Southeast Asians, Japanese and Americans, who would otherwise face years of illness or the risk of death if they were to wait for transplants in their home countries.

Hospitals welcome foreign patients because they pay as much as 10 times the price local patients pay for the same operation. For an American patient, the Chinese charges are somewhat below the comparative cost in the United States.

It is hard to say how many Americans are receiving such organs each year. Anecdotal evidence in both countries suggests the number is small but growing and cuts across various regions. I think this is pretty widespread," said Dr. Diflo. "You'll see it anywhere you have an Asian community."

All five hospitals that do kidney transplants in Shanghai say they treat foreign patients.

"There was one from America in July or August," a nurse in the urology department at Changhai Hospital, affiliated with the Shanghai Second Military Medical University, recalled this week. The doctor who performed the transplant said the patient, a woman, recently returned home to California.

More than 78,350 Americans are awaiting organ transplants, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit group that matches donors to transplant patients in the United States. Among them, about 50,000 need a kidney and that number is expected to double within the decade.

Most of those people must endure years of dialysis, spending three hours three times a week at a clinic or hospital where needles are inserted into an arm or leg to drain their blood, clean it and return it to the body.

The periodic buildup of toxins in the blood and the stress of dialysis is debilitating over time. Between 5 percent and 10 percent of people undergoing dialysis die each year.

With the wait for a kidney transplant stretching to six years or more in parts of the United States, it is little wonder that patients with the necessary money and contacts opt for an ethically questionable transplant.

China is not alone in using prisoner organs to meet the demand for transplants. Taiwan also harvests organs from executed prisoners, albeit with strict consent requirements, as do some South American countries. The idea has even gained currency with some people in the United States. Last year, a state lawmaker in Florida introduced a bill that would facilitate the transplant of organs from death row inmates after execution. The bill, which did spark some debate, is unlikely ever to become law.

Doctors are divided about whether to treat patients with transplanted organs from executed prisoners.

Dr. Stephen Tomlanovich, a kidney transplant specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, has several patients who traveled to Shanghai or Guangzhou to receive kidneys that he suspects came from executed prisoners. The patients involved told him that they were not certain of their organs' origins and Dr. Tomlanovich accepted that.

But if presented with a clear case in which an organ came from an executed prisoner, he says he would probably decline to treat the patient.

"I guess I would explain that it makes me uncomfortable and might affect my care," he said by telephone from San Francisco. "I would attempt to find the patient care within some other medical system."

After Dr. Diflo was asked to monitor the level of medication taken by patients who conceded that they had been given organs from executed prisoners, he went to his hospital's ethics board to discuss his misgivings. The board supported his decision to continue treating the patients.

"Certainly what they've done from my point of view is ethically and morally wrong," Dr. Diflo said this week. "But they're in need of medical care and we can't punish them."

 

[Dave]

from The Times Online

Bodysnatchers stole bones of veteran broadcaster to sell for transplants

By Tim Reid and Times Online

The bones of Alistair Cooke, the veteran Letter from America broadcaster, were stolen by a criminal gang trading in body parts the day before his cremation, New York police have told his family.

Mr Cooke’s family expressed their horror to The Times yesterday after being informed that his bones were removed by a surgeon the day after he died, and then allegedly sold for about $7,000 (£4,000) to two transplant companies.

Paperwork describing the bones, which were cancerous and too old for use in transplants, was reportedly altered to say they came from an 85-year-old man who had died of a heart attack.

Mr Cooke, who presented Letter from America on BBC Radio for 58 years, died aged 95 at his Manhattan home in March last year of lung cancer that had spread to his bones.

Police believe that the following day, at the New York undertakers where Mr Cooke was taken, his body was cut open and his bones removed, before he was cremated.

The family, unaware of the desecration, scattered Mr Cooke’s ashes the day after in Central Park, in accordance with his wishes.

Last week prosecutors in the District Attorney’s office in Brooklyn, who are immersed in a year-long investigation into the illegal sale of body parts by a New York undertakers, called Mr Cooke’s daughter, the Rev Susan Cooke Kittredge, to tell her that her father’s body had been mutilated and plundered after his death.

"We are reeling from this," Mrs Cooke Kittredge, a ongregational minister in Vermont, told The Times. In a formal statement read over the telephone, she added: "Alistair Cooke’s family is hocked and saddened by the news that following his death parts of his body were illegally sold for transplant.

"That people in need of healing should have received his body parts, considering his age and the fact that he was ill when he died, is as appalling to the family as it is that his remains were violated."

Holly Rumbold, his stepdaughter, told the BBC that what had befallen her stepfather was corrupt and evil. She added: "I am furious. I am enraged. I am outraged. My stepfather is not the only one that has been used for this macabre purpose and people are making millions of dollars out of it."

Ms Rumbold described what happened to her stepfather’s body after his death.

"He died in the night and the undertakers collected him. His ashes, or what we thought were his ashes, were returned the next day. They were scattered in Central Park. Who knows — maybe some of the ashes were his — how do you know? It defies the imagination.

"I am most shocked by the violation of the medical ethics, that my stepfather’s ancient and cancerous bones should have been passed off as healthy tissue to innocent patients in their quest for better health. It is the wickedest idea I ever heard of."

Richard Price, the former chairman of Bafta and a close friend of Mr Cooke, told The Times: "Could someone tell me how anyone could do such an awful thing? It is disgusting, horrendous."

Police allege that the body of Mr Cooke, who was best known in the US for his 22-year presentation of Masterpiece Theatre, a popular Sunday evening television show, was one of hundreds of corpses illegally ransacked for profit in America’s lucrative organ transplant and body tissue industry.

The Brooklyn District Attorney’s investigation has focused on a New York undertaker and the manager of a body tissue processing company, amid allegations that they harvested bones, veins, skin, heart valves and other body parts from corpses, before selling them on to unwitting and reputable surgical transplant companies.

The investigation centres on activities allegedly managed by Michael Mastromarino, a former dentist who runs Biomedical Tissue Services, a bone and tissue recovery company in New Jersey, and Joseph Nicelli, his former business partner. Mr Nicelli, an embalmer, owned a Brooklyn undertakers.

Investigators are looking back over the past two years and focusing on up to six New York undertakers who allegedly tipped off Mr Mastromarino when bodies arrived. He and Mr Nicelli are under investigation over allegations that, without the permission of families, they stripped the bodies of tissue and organs, before selling them on.

Neither man has been charged. Mario Galluci, Mr Mastromarino’s lawyer, told CNN last week that his client had nothing to do with the illegal harvesting of body parts. "He is a pioneer in the industry," he said. "Nobody has shown us that absolutely anything has been done inappropriately."

In another recent statement, Mr Galluci said that his client was "recognised nationally for procuring the highest quality tissue".

David Grossberg, the lawyer for the Cooke family in New York, said that the family was still too shocked to decide what action to take but added that all options were open.

Prosecutors have shown families consent forms that were allegedly forged, with ages and causes of death often falsified. By some estimates a single body, once it has been dissected and harvested, can be worth up to $150,000 (£85,000). Tissue and bone from Mr Mastromarino’s company have been sent to medical and dental facilities throughout the US and Canada.

The use of cancerous bone for transplant is a violation of the US Food and Drug Administration’s rules.

Last week it was reported that the body of an 82-year-old New York woman, which was exhumed as part of the investigation, was found to have had plastic plumbing pipe stuffed into her burial clothing. Nearly all her bones below her waist had been removed before burial.

The family of Michael Bruno, a New York cab driver who died last year, were visited recently by a detective with a donor consent form that his son, Vito Bruno, had supposedly signed.

Mr Bruno says that his signature had been forged on the form. Also changed was his father’s cause of death, listed as heart disease, instead of kidney cancer.

The undertakers that handled Mr Bruno’s body was run by Mr Nicelli. He denies any wrongdoing.

The crime has posed the question whether human body parts could be bought and sold in the UK. Nigel Hawkes, Times Health Editor, said to do so would be an offence under Section 32 of the Human Tissue Act, and conviction could lead to a jail sentence of up to three years.

"However, all laws are there to be broken, so it is impossible to say this couldn’t happen here," said Hawkes.

"So far there have no prosecutions under the Act, which came into force in November 2004."

The Act will be enforced by the Human Tissue Authority, which does not come into being formally until April 2006. It will license and inspect post mortem activities for hospitals and coroners, anatomical examinations, public display of human remains and storage of human tissue.

The new act and the establishment of the HTA emerged from the controversy over the retention of organs at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool and Bristol Royal Infirmary. Tissue and whole organs removed from babies during post-mortem examinations had been retained without the permission of their parents.

"While reprehensible, these scandals did not involve the sale of tissues, so they pale into insignificance compared to what has happened in the US," added Hawkes.

ILLICIT TRADE

From the early 18th century there was often a shortage of cadavers legally available for dissection and study by medical students

Those who illicitly traded stolen bodies for profit were sometimes termed "resurrectionists"

William Burke and William Hare, two immigrants from Northern Ireland, are believed to have murdered up to 30 people from 1827, to profit from the sale of their bodies to Robert Knox, an Edinburgh doctor. Burke was convicted and hanged two years later but Hare is said to have died a penniless pauper in London in 1858. No charges were brought against Knox, who accepted and paid for the bodies

This and similar cases led to the passage in 1832 of the Anatomy Act, which permitted the legal acquisition by medical schools of unclaimed bodies, those that no relatives had claimed within 48 hours of death. Paupers’ bodies from hospitals, Poor Law institutions, asylums and workhouses were commonly transferred to dissection rooms

According to Simon Chaplin, of the Royal College of Surgeons, discoveries of medical history such as the smallpox vaccine, advances in obstetrics, dental surgery and the treatment and detection of venereal disease may not have been possible but for the illicit trade

In the United States in 1788 outraged citizens of New York precipitated a riot while ransacking the rooms of anatomy students and professors at Columbia College Medical School in search of bodies which they believed had been stolen

The following year bodysnatching was prohibited by law, leading to a growth in illegal professional bodysnatching. It was not until 1854 that anatomy students were allowed access to unclaimed bodies from public institutions.

TheIndyChannel.com
Funeral Homes Busted In Body Parts Scandal
Acts Compared To 'Cheap Horror Movie'

POSTED: 6:51 am EST February 24, 2006
NEW YORK -- The owner of a biomedical supply house and three others were charged with selling body parts for use in transplants in a scheme a district attorney called "something out of a cheap horror movie."

Prosecutors said Thursday the defendants made millions of dollars obtaining bodies from funeral parlors in three states and forging death certificates and organ donor consent forms to make it look as if the bones, skin, tendons, heart valves and other tissue were legally removed.

The indictment was the first set of charges to come out of a widening scandal involving scores of funeral homes and hundreds of bodies, including that of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke, who died in 2004. The investigation has raised fears that some of the body parts could spread disease to transplant recipients.

"I think we can agree that the conduct uncovered in this case is
among the most ghastly imaginable," said Rose Gill Hearn,
commissioner of the city Department of Investigation. "It was
shockingly callous in its disregard for the sanctity of human remains."

Michael Mastromarino, owner of Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort
Lee, N.J., was charged along with Brooklyn funeral home owner Joseph Nicelli.

Mastromarino was an oral surgeon who went into the tissue business after losing his dentist license, prosecutors said. Nicelli was a partner in the business, they said. The other defendants were Lee Crucetta and Christopher Aldorasi.

All four pleaded not guilty to charges of enterprise corruption, body stealing and opening graves, unlawful dissection, forgery and other counts.

Prosecutors said the defendants took organs from people who had not given consent or were too old or too sick to donate. The defendants forged consent forms and altered the death certificates to indicate the victims had been younger and healthier, authorities said.

X-rays and photos of recently exhumed cadavers show that where leg bones should have been, someone had inserted white plastic pipes -- the kind used for home plumbing projects, available at any hardware store. The pipes were crudely reconnected to hip and ankle bones with screws before the legs were sewn back up.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes called it "something out of a cheap horror movie."

Prosecutors said the body parts were sold to tissue suppliers and
ultimately used in disk replacements, knee operations, dental
implants and a variety of other surgical procedures performed by
unsuspecting doctors across the United States and in Canada.

The bodies came from funeral homes in New York City, Rochester,
Philadelphia and New Jersey that contracted with the Brooklyn funeral parlor for embalming. Prosecutors said more arrests were possible.

Nicelli was paid up to $1,000 per body to deliver corpses to a secret operating room at his funeral parlor, where Mastromarino would remove body parts, authorities said. Crucetta, a nurse, and Aldorasi allegedly helped Mastromarino.

Mastromarino made up to $7,000 a body by selling the tissue,
authorities said, and the corpses were then returned to unsuspecting funeral directors for burial.

The scheme began to unravel in late 2004, when a detective responded to a report from the new owner of Nicelli's funeral home that he allegedly cheated customers out of funeral deposits. The detective grew suspicious when she saw the hidden operating room, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Mastromarino "vehemently denies doing anything illegal or wrong," defense attorney Mario Gallucci said. Mastromarino contends he "was not responsible for interacting with the families of the deceased nor in obtaining the documentation needed to harvest the tissue."

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration closed
Biomedical Tissue Services, saying it had evidence the company failed to screen for contaminated tissue. The agency warned that patients who received the company's products could have been exposed to diseases, although the FDA insisted the risk was minimal.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article352535.ece

Japan's rich buy organs from executed Chinese prisoners

By Clifford Coonan in Beijing and David McNeill in Tokyo
Published: 21 March 2006

Hundreds of well-off Japanese and other nationals are turning to China's burgeoning human organ transplant industry, paying tens of thousands of pounds for livers and kidneys, which in some cases have been harvested from executed prisoners and sold to hospitals.

When Kenichiro Hokamura's kidneys failed, he faced a choice: wait for a transplant or go online to check out rumours of organs for sale. As a native of Japan, where just 40 human organs for transplant have been donated since 1997, the businessman, 62, says it was no contest. "There are 100 people waiting in this prefecture alone. I would have died before getting a donor." Still, he was astonished by just how easy it was.

Ten days after contacting a Japanese broker in China two months ago, he was lying on an operating table in a Shanghai hospital receiving a new kidney. "It was so fast, I was scared," he says. The "e-donor" was an executed man; the price: 6.8m yen (about £33,000).

Beijing does not reveal how many people it executes, but analysts estimate as many as 8,000 people are killed each year. Reports of Chinese authorities removing organs from executed prisoners have been circulating since the mid-1980s, when the development of a drug called Cyclosoporine-A made transplants a newly viable option for patients.

Until now, most of the evidence linking executions to the organ trade has been anecdotal and has not been helped by a lack of transparency in the Chinese criminal justice system or the secrecy that surrounds prison executions.

A recovering Mr Hokamura claims he is concerned with where his new kidney came from. "My translator said my donor was a young executed prisoner," says the businessman. "The donor was able to provide a contribution to society so what's wrong with that?"

"It was cheap," adds Mr Hokamura, now back in Japan. "I can always earn more money."

Rumours of problems with follow-up care and patients dying within one to two years of returning from China have failed to stem the tide. A single broker has helped more than a hundred Japanese people go to China for transplants since 2004 and the trade is growing. Official figures almost surely underestimate the numbers of people, many of whom fly without government knowledge. Mr Hokamura says his family is so pleased that his daughter has put his experience on the internet. In her blog she says she feels sorry for others to have to wait years for transplants and provides a link to a support centre in Shanghai. "Other people should know about this," she writes.

Sources say the cost of a kidney transplant runs to £37,000 and for a liver up to £88,000. Mr Hokamura paid another million yen for transport costs. There is little attempt to conceal the origins of the organs, the bulk of which are taken from executed prisoners.

Alarmed by the growing traffic, the Japanese health ministry has begun a joint research project with transport authorities in a bid to gain some control on the trade. But the government is likely to find it difficult to stop desperate people who have money from making the short plane hop to China. Says Mr Hokamura: "I was on dialysis for four years and four months. I was tired of aiting." The Chinese government insists it is trying to crack down on the market in illegal organs. According to regulations, even in the case of a donation by a close living relative, both patients and donors must provide legal proof of the relationship by blood or marriage or submit to a DNA test.

But the signs spray-painted on the walls outside clinics and hospitals in many parts of China tell a different story. Simple and direct, these show a mobile phone number and the character for shen, which means "kidney", written alongside. Postings fon numerous online bulletin boards and other internet sites also offer kidneys for sale. The sale of organs for transplants is illegal in China, but the black market is flourishing. And it's not just the small private hospitals and clinics springing up all over the country - even bigger hospitals in the capital Beijing and the business hub of Shanghai have adverts in toilet cubicles and on the walls of wards. "We have to wipe off the notices again and again. They even visit doctors, make numerous calls or write letters again and again," said Professor Ding Qiang, the head of Urology at Huashan hospital, part of Fudan university in Shanghai. "Donations that are subsequently made are surely organ trading, but 'organ donation' for money is strictly banned," said Professor Ding. However, China is a huge country and, as the proverb goes: the mountains are high and the emperor is far away. The legal ban may have an impact on the illegal organ trade in major public hospitals but the private clinics and small hospitals, which are run for profit, are extremely difficult to regulate, leaving room for profitable, illegal organ trading.

Generally, there is a lack of awareness in China about transplants. As in Japan, a cultural taboo, strongly related to Buddhist beliefs, has traditionally been associated with donating organs. The procedure is seen to make the body imperfect and, in some ways, it means the donor is being unfilial, even if the donation is to a family member.

AOL News
19/04/06
China 'Harvesting Prisoners' Organs'

Organs are being removed from executed prisoners without consent, it is claimed.

British transplant surgeons have accused China of harvesting the organs of thousands of executed prisoners a year to sell for transplants.

In a statement, the British Transplantation Society will condemn the practice as unacceptable and a breach of human rights, the BBC reports. Chinese officials denied the practice earlier this week.

The British Transplantation Society said increasing evidence suggested that the organs of thousands of executed prisoners in China were being removed for transplants without consent.

Professor Stephen Wigmore, who chairs the society's ethics committee, told the BBC's Radio 5 Live that the speed of matching donors and patients implied prisoners were being selected before execution.

He said: "The weight of evidence has accumulated to a point over the last few months where it's really incontrovertible in our opinion.

"We feel that it's the right time to take a stance against this practice.''

Prof Wigmore said he and his colleagues all knew of patients who had researched the possibility of going to China for transplants.

Last week a Chinese health official said organs from executed prisoners were used, but only with prior permission and in very few cases.

Chinese authorities recently announced steps to tighten regulations surrounding transplants. From July, selling organs will be illegal and all donors must give written permission.

 

[Dave]

I've been collecting these stories over a period of time, this is on AOL news today:

Wife rejects transplanted penis

The first penis to be successfully transplanted has been rejected - by the recipient's wife, it has been reported.

A 44-year-old Chinese father-of-three was left with a 0.4in stump and was unable to urinate or have sexual intercourse after being injured in a car accident, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Surgeons at Guangzhou General Hospital spent 15 hours attaching a four-inch organ from a brain-dead 22-year-old man after his parents agreed.

The surgical team said that, after 10 days, blood was flowing into the transplanted penis, there was no sign of the patient's body rejecting it and he was able to urinate normally.

But in next month's edition of the journal European Urology, they report that they had to remove the organ because of "a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife".

Dr Weilie Hu writes: "The recipient could urinate smoothly in a standing position at day 10 after removal of the catheter."

Previously severed penises have been sewn back on after accidents or attacks but this was thought to be the first time surgeons had carried out a successful transplant.

Chinese media said that the patient was able to attain an erection immediately after the operation which cost £3,500.

Transplants in China often involve organs removed from executed prisoners.

 

[j d worthington]

This is not (quite) the same as some of the above, but ...

Poor Pakistanis donate kidneys for money - Yahoo! News

 

[Dave]

This is not (quite) the same as some of the above,

All part of the same trend. Now you can get a fast track visa to the west if you donate...

Fears raised over immigrant organ donors
Visa officials get guidelines on processing immigrants willing to donate

By TOM GODFREY AND VIVIAN SONG, TORONTO SUN

Concerns are being raised about the global recruiting of live organ donors who are being fast-tracked here to save the lives of ailing Canadians, says an immigration policy analyst who sounded the alarm this week.

Canadian embassies worldwide have been issued guidelines on how to process potential immigrants seeking "organ visas," in which they're allowed to travel here to donate body parts, such as a kidney or liver, to prescreened Canucks.

"We need more in-depth examination and safeguards in these cases," Kurland said. "It is not enough to have airport inspections in cases like these."

But Melanie Carkner, a ministry of citizenship and immigration spokesman, slammed any suggestion the guidelines were issued because of a rising trend in donors seeking organ visas -- and a ticket into the country -- adding that donors were mostly relatives.

"There is no story," Carkner said yesterday. "People are certainly not coming here for that purpose... the guidelines were established to assist visa officers on ...issuing temporary visa applications ... anyone who comes here on a temporary visa is expected to leave at the end of the visit."

She was unable to provide the number of organ donors who seek temporary visas into the country, nor was information on countries of origin available.

Visa officers have been told to ensure the donors are not getting paid for the donations, but their travel, accommodation and expenses in Canada must be looked after by the recipient.

"The visa officer must be satisfied on a balance of probabilities that no sale of human organs is taking place," the guidelines state. "The possibility for financial inducement must be carefully examined."

When asked to elaborate how visa officers "balance probabilities," Carkner refused to comment, saying only that "checks" are put into place.

"I'm not prepared to discuss that ... that would compromise procedures. Our visa officers are well-trained professionals."

The officers are told there must be "evidence of medical compatibility" between donor and recipient, a letter from a transplant specialist indicating tests have been undertaken, a match found and that a centre will undertake the surgery to be paid by provincial insurance.

"Unavailability of local health-care facilities might be an inducement to remain in Canada," the guidelines said.

Officers were also told to speed up cases if the donation is a life-and-death matter and refuse those if the donor is involved in organ trafficking or not a legitimate visitor.

"Canada's national interest is not served by the issuance of a permit that facilitates the illegal international trade in human organs," the guideline states.

 

[j d worthington]

At this point, I'm not sure whether Niven would be sitting there with a death's-head grin drinking himself into a coma, or off in a corner, weeping.....

"Science fiction is futuristic, far-out, escapist nonsense!"


... Right.......

 

[Dave]

This is one of todays headlines...

from BBC News

Experts are warning people against selling their organs online

A transplant surgeon has warned against selling body parts, after a report suggested organs are for sale online. The Sun newspaper claims people are selling organs such as kidneys, parts of their liver, and the corneas from their eyes, online to raise money.

Although there is a shortage of organs available for transplantation, the sale of organs in the UK is illegal.

Mr Keith Rigg condemned the practice and warned of a definite risk of death for transplant donors.

Mr Rigg, a consultant transplant surgeon at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "I know there are people advertising their organs for sale online, but in this country it is illegal."

He said some patients had travelled abroad; such as to Pakistan or China to buy organs, but in those cases the purchases had been made over the internet but through previous connections.

He also warned of the potential dangers involved for donors.

In the UK there is a one in 3,000 chance of a person donating a kidney dying after the operation, and a one in 200 chance after donating a section of liver.

He said the sale of corneas, which would blind donors in the eye from which the cornea was taken, showed the lengths that some people were prepared to go to for money.

He also warned that other complications could occur after donations keeping people in hospital for longer, and that this occurred in about 20-25 % of cases of liver donations.

He said: "We would not support anyone doing this although we do recognise that there is a shortage of organs [in the UK]."

He said the trade could be fuelled by the large number of people waiting for organ donations in the UK.

Organs from 764 people who died were used in 2,195 transplants. 1,914 patients received a kidney transplant, 31% of which came from a friend or relative 610 patients received a liver transplant. At the end of the year 6,698 patients were listed as actively waiting for a transplant. At the end of the year 13,122,056 people were registered on the NHS Organ Donor Register

The British Transplantation Society said it considered donation of organs for any kind of personal gain to be unethical.

Mr John Forsythe, BTS president, said: "We would completely condemn the sale of organs."

He said in all cases of live donation, they would try to ensure no coercion was involved at all, and that the selling of organs, often by people in desperate need of money would be "abhorrent" to many people.

The Sun newspaper claims though that an undercover reporter met Umer Maqbool, a 24-year-old waiter who had advertised his organs online.

Mr Maqbool apparently told the reporter he wanted money to buy a house for his family in Pakistan and to start a business.

He said: "I'm ready to sell my kidney, a section of liver and maybe after three months do the cornea in my eye.

"I'm ready to do it today. I want £100,000 for all three."

 

[j d worthington]

A pm from Pyan bumped my fading memory, reminding me that I'd meant to post on this back when you put it up, Dave....

I've heard snippets of stories over the last few months of this nature, but not seen anything with this much detail. And I must ask: Is it any surprise that there's such a practice burgeoning? With so many people looking at any way at all to support and improve matters for their families (unaware or unheeding of the fact that such measures are only temporary and they will end up in an even worse situation down the line because of such actions), so many people so far below the poverty level in so many countries, the exponential growth of the population over the last 50 years, etc., etc. ... is it any wonder that we're seeing such a thing becoming viewed as a viable way of making it out from under?

And then there are the other stories, about organs being removed from prisoners, etc.

The only way out of this I see is to develop both artificial organs and to continue searching for both genetic solutions and the cloning of organs (with genetic faults rectified). But that is costly, and takes time. In the interim, I'm very much afraid we are going to see things approach even closer to the scenario in "The Jigsaw Man" before we see anything genuinely effective done to stop it, or see the people who are most likely to suffer from such practices (the poor, the disenfranchised) have even an inkling of how much worse off they'll be ... at least, enough to overcome their need to provide for those they love ... or for themselves, for that matter.....

 

[Dave]

I think it makes a good case for why stem cell research, and cloning, and all those technologies that can be challenged ethically should actually be allowed. Surely, they are the lesser of two evils. And an organ that exactly matches you genetically is preferable to someone elses.

 

[j d worthington]

And now we're seeing some of the fallout of this on the entire process of donations:

Human organ trafficking threatens donation schemes - Yahoo! News

ROTTERDAM (Reuters) - Illegal trafficking of human organs from poor to rich countries threatens to undermine donation programs in industrialized states and worsen a growing shortage, transplant experts said on Monday.

Exploiting poor donors, especially for kidneys, is creating a kind of "medical apartheid" that risks turning public opinion against transplantation schemes and could threaten rich states' legal donation programs, experts said.

"Organ trafficking and its consequences are of grave concern for transplantation and public trust in medical establishments," University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Debra Budiani told a conference aimed at a common European policy on transplants.

Andre Kottnerus, chairman of the Netherlands Health Council, said health officials had to speak out more publicly against organ trafficking, which the World Health Organization (WHO) says accounts for up to 10 percent of transplants worldwide.

Transplantation is a growing problem in rich states because waiting lists are growing far faster than the supply of organs.

Kidneys are in dramatically short supply, prompting a black market where the poor receive small sums for donating kidneys sold to rich recipients for many thousands of dollars.

"Something like 10,000 kidneys are transplanted every year from living donors who are paid sometimes small amounts," Bos said, calling the situation "a kind of medical apartheid."

"This goes from the poor to the rich, from underdeveloped to rich countries, from black and colored people to whites and often from women to men."

The Geneva-based WHO said last Friday "transplant tourism" was rising, as rich patients bypassed bans on buying organs at home by traveling abroad to receive kidneys from poor donors.

In one such case, a New Yorker paid $60,000 to receive a kidney in a South African hospital from a Brazilian who was paid $6,000 for it, Francis Delmonico of Harvard Medical School told the conference. An Israeli businessman set up the deal.

U.S. and European laws ban the sale of human organs and most tissue for transplant is taken fresh from the cadavers of the newly deceased. A smaller amount also comes from live donors, mostly people giving to save the life of a relative or friend.

But these supplies cannot expand to meet the demand, which is booming as medical advances make transplantation more reliable and illnesses cause more cases of kidney failure.

Some experts advocate the creation of a regulated market for human organs, a proposal several speakers rejected as unethical because it would turn body parts into commercial commodities and risky because it could persuade people not to donate anymore.

"Once a market model is introduced, there is no place for a donation model," said Bert Vanderhaegen, ethicist at University Hospital in Ghent, Belgium. "If kidneys have a (monetary) value, all organs have to have a value. But nobody can sell his heart."

The article is titled "Human organ trafficking threatens donation schemes", it is through Reuters, by Tom Heneghan, datelined Mon., Apr. 2, 2007.

 

[Dave]

I do carry an organ donor card myself, and I've also given blood (which is still donated free in the UK) about 26 times. On my donor card I cross out the part that says "or any part of my body can be used for the treatment of others."

I'm quite happy to know that my "kidneys, corneas, heart, lungs, liver and pancreas" will go to help someone else. My brother's organs all went to help different people after he died, and it somehow makes his death a little less senseless to know that. However, I also once lived with medical students for a year. I know that they took skulls home on the buses, and I heard other stories involving cadavers. I'm just not ready to let people do anything they want with my corpse. If the market model was introduced, I would certainly tear up my donor card as I would be against anyone making money from my body parts. Unfortunately, as Larry Niven predicted, supplies cannot expand to meet the demand under the present circumstances.

The hope is that we can artificially grow organs and tissue as I said in my first post, but there will still always be a haves and have nots scenario due to tissue typing and the costs. It will be a case of the genetic discrimination we discussed in the other thread.
http://www.chronicles-network.com/forum/10417-genetic-discrimination.html

 

[Ice fyre]

Hello

Just noticed on the news last couple of days, a research team has succesfully grown a part for a heart from stem cells they think that his therapy could be used within three years.

I suspect this wont be the end of organlegging, it will be going on for some time to come but as this therapy becomes cheaper.

I wonder if were going to be seeing wireheads next!

 

[Dave]

I wonder if were going to be seeing wireheads next!

Not unless the price of electricity falls

Here is that news report:
Heart tissue grown from stem cells

from Irish Health

Heart tissue grown from stem cells

[Posted: Mon 02/04/2007]

Human heart tissue has been grown from stem cells for the first time.

Renowned heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub and his team have grown part of a heart from the cells which are the 'raw material' of all parts of the body.

Dr Macoub, who has performed more heart transplants than any surgeon in the world, said the advance means a whole heart created in the laboratory is a possibility.

He told the Guardian newspaper that heart components for surgery could be ready in three years.

Dr Macoub leads a team based at Harefield Hospital in Middlesex, working with scientists from Imperial College in London. The team includes physicists and pharmacologists as well as heart specialists.

The laboratory creation of a whole heart has become a reality, he told the newspaper. "It is an ambitious project but not impossible. If you want me to guess I'd say 10 years," he said.


Dr Macoub has spent much of the past decade working on this project. A full account will be published in a professional journal in August.

Body parts such as bladders and tendons have already been grown from stem cells, but to make an organ as complex as the heart is much more difficult and delicate.

Stem cell research has been controversial because the most pliable cells are from foetuses. Its status has not been resolved in Britain, where authorities are examining the issue.

I hadn't seen that before you mentioned it.

 

[j d worthington]

I agree that cloning and growing organs (especially if we learn enough about genetic manipulation to eliminate existing flaws in the coding) is the best solution to this, but it is going to have to both become very refined and also affordable for a large percentage before it will begin to replace the often cheaper alternative of donor organs... or of paying someone for their organs, for that matter....

 

[Pyan]

Lois Bujold has a macabre version in the Miles Vorkosigan books - on Jackson's Whole, clones are raised to order, and then, when it's big enough, the buyer has his/her brain transplanted into it.

 

[j d worthington]

Lois Bujold has a macabre version in the Miles Vorkosigan books - on Jackson's Whole, clones are raised to order, and then, when it's big enough, the buyer has his/her brain transplanted into it.

As I recall, Heinlein himself had something like that going in at least one of his books. If you can manage to produce a clone which has only the portion of the brain which control the various bodily functions (I don't think just the autonomic nervous system would cover it, though), but no higher functions... no "person" in the corpus ... then it's not necessarily a bad idea; but it'd be darned expensive upkeep!

 

[Lensman]

It's perfectly true, organleggers are alive and well and living in China, and raiding your local funeral home. Actually China combines parts of Niven's "organ bank" executions and organleggers. Executed criminals there have organs removed, without permission from the family, and some (many) are sold on the black market. I don't know if anyone has been executed on trumped-up charges just so his/her organs could be harvested, but if corruption is that widespread in selling organs on the black market, then it wouldn't surprise me.

Personally I have no moral qualms about a clone of me being created for organ transplants, so long as they can figure out how to grow one without a brain. If the clone has a brain, well then it-- or rather, he-- has just as much right to live a full life as I do.

 

[Dave]

There has been discussion on the radio today regarding Transplant Tourism as a result of this TV programme. Even though the donor only gets £1000 of the £42,000 cost, this practice sits easier with me than people buying the Kidneys of executed Chinese convicts.

Dad prepared to buy a kidney for £40,000
Dec 3 2007 by Ben Glaze, South Wales Echo

A man needing a kidney transplant flew to the Philippines to buy one from a live organ donor.

“Transplant tourist” Mark Schofield was prepared to spend £40,000 so he would not have to undergo daily dialysis for the rest of his life.

The 43-year-old surf wear company boss, of Porthcawl, travelled to South East Asia with his wife Jayne because organ selling – banned in the UK – is legal in the Philippines but did not have an operation.

Mark says: “If I could buy one in this country I would. If the people standing on the moral high ground said what else I can do, I would trade places with them.

“I’m not prepared to lie down and play dead. You’ve got to take the gamble, you can’t sit back and do nothing.

“I haven’t finished my life. I want to do more. I have to look to the best place I can get the kidney.”

Mark, who is dad to 13-year-old Jessica and George, 16, tired of waiting on the British transplant list, so registered with Filipino medics who called him when a donor willing to trade a kidney became available.

He flew out with no guarantee the donor would be compatible or that the transplant would go ahead.

Twenty years ago, after he was first diagnosed, Mark’s mother Jean gave him a kidney. The operation was initially successful, but over time the organ failed.

Even she objects to transplant tourism, saying: “I think it’s wrong.”

But crying as she waves him off from Porthcawl, she adds: “I hoped it would never come to this, but he wants to do it.

“I just hope he gets what he wants.”

Mark, a European surf champion before he fell ill, would not get his money back if his body rejects the kidney – and the 10-day trip alone cost more than £5,000.

Jayne, a nurse, supports her husband but also has doubts about the procedure.

She says: “I’ve got mixed feelings.

“Morally, I think it’s wrong to pay, but if you put yourself in Mark’s shoes and there’s not other option, how long do you wait for a kidney in this country?

“You can’t compare his health with money.”

Ultimately, the kidney on offer proves incompatible, but Mark vows: “I will live without dialysis at some point before I die.”

Viewers can see his trip on a Week In Week Out Special, tonight on BBC1 Wales at 8.30pm, with an hour-long repeat tomorrow on BBC2W at 7pm.

ben.glaze@mediawales.co.uk