The Reluctant Organs Have Their Final Say

The Star: July 12, 2010 - Tainted Organ Transplants

 

SUBANG JAYA: Some Malaysians who went abroad for organ transplants have returned home with HIV, hepatitis and other problems, a World Health Organisation (WHO) adviser said. “It is time to amend laws and establish a full-time agency to have more and ethical organ donations in the country,” said Prof Dr Francis Delmonico, calling on legislators to push for laws against organ trafficking and transplant tourism in Malaysia.
He also suggested that the authorities look into the possibility of organ donation for cases of cardiac death and not only in brain dead cases.
“There are many cases of Malaysians going abroad for organ transplants.
“There is no guarantee of the quality of organs. In many cases, the patients returned with HIV, hepatitis and other problems,’’ said Dr Delmonico, a WHO adviser on human organ transplantation.
He was speaking at a forum on “Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism – The Need for Regulatory and Legislative Control” at the 13th Scientific Meeting of the Malaysian Society of Transplantation at the Grand Dorsett Hotel here on Friday night.
Dr Delmonico said the commercialisation of organs go against the Istanbul Declaration, which proclaims that the poor who sell their organs are being exploited.
The declaration, signed by participants of an international summit on transplant tourism and organ trafficking in 2008, concluded that organ trafficking and transplant tourism violate respect for human dignity and the principles of equity and justice and should be prohibited.
Health Ministry head of nephrology services Dr Ghazali Ahmad, in his talk on “Hurdles of Living Unrelated Organ Donation” said that in 2009, 17 kidney failure patients received transplant from dead donors and nine from live donors.
In 2008, there were 53 from deceased donors and one from a live donor. In 2007, it was 45 from deceased donors and three from live donors.
The statistics were gathered after patients returned home from abroad to seek post-transplant treatment.
Kidney transplants made available from deceased donors were believed to be organs from executed prisoners in China.

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The Straits Times: June 7, 2010 - Black Organ Market Rakes On Poverty And Hope

Organ trafficking middleman Liu Qiangshen sits in the court showing his side scar left after a liver transplantation operation. (photo by Beijing Morning Post)

Barely coming of age and lacking money, 19-year-old Yang Nian sold almost two thirds of his liver, for which a Beijing patient in urgent need of organ transplant paid 150,000 yuan (S$21,900).

But the money only ended up in the hands of organ trafficking middleman Liu Qiangsheng, who assembled a score of hatchet men to beat up a scarred Yang when he came to claim his liver fees. Yang got a mingy 25,000 yuan (S$3,660), not the promised dole of 35,000 yuan (S$5,130), the Beijing Morning Post reported Thursday.

The stomach-turning report details Yang's wait for a suitable buyer in a slum along with other reluctant donors in central Hebei province as well as his physical checkup and identity forgery in order to pass for a legal organ supplier for the Beijing patient

The Beijing patient, at first unwitting of Yang's pathetic compensation, was also threatened by the middleman if he dared refuse further payment out of previous bargain.

"We only learned later that the middleman Liu just gave Yang that little, we are very angry, but we are also very scared and could do nothing," said the patient's wife. The couple paid a huge sum to the middleman, only with borrowed money.

The case, still under investigation, shed light on a rampant organ trafficking market reigned by unscrupulous middlemen, intertwined with hospitals sometimes, who rake in the organ donation dearth in China where for every 150 patients in the waiting line of organ transplant there is only one legal donor.

The black organ market is so organized that it runs like an assembly line.

The middlemen draw together a group of illegal donors, mostly male, offering food and board before ushering them through a series of medical examinations to kick out the unhealthy and the unprofitable, like those with AB blood, accounting only 5 percent of the general population.

The middlemen even help to bribe doctors and secure a better hospital, not to mention the cheap identity fabrication as in Yang's case, since organ donation by a living individual should be among relatives in China.

While, for the most part of the job, it is waiting, sometimes endlessly, for a suitable buyer. That's why most middlemen choose to foster a large donator group, increasing the chance of medical matches, and larger profits.

In Thursday's news report, a middleman in eastern Jiangsu, surnamed Wang, bragged how he fostered 190 underground donors in the past two years and successfully channeled over 30 transplant cases. Another in northeastern Shenyang assured that he could secure an organ donation in three days, and could even offer an extra donor as a backup.

So far the only organ donation regulation in China is a toothless bylaw which forbids, rather than criminalizes, organ trafficking as illegal business operations. Legal specialists said the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

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The Star: June 7, 2010  - China's Grisly Human Organs Market

China's human organs trade is grisly but lucrative

China's black market for human organs is booming.

Nearly 1.5 million people require organ transplants every year but according to the Health Ministry, only ten thousand can get what they need.

China banned organ transplants from living donours in 2007 (with the exception of spouses, blood relatives or adopted family members) and it was not until last year that a national campaign to coordinate donations after death was launched.

A defendant charged with trafficking human organs testified recently that half a liver can cost up to RM21,980.95, while an entire transplant, which includes operation and recovery costs, runs at about RM66,710.00.

"The crime can damage society and moral values," says the Procuratorial Daily.
"I believe I was helping people, not harming others. I saved the life of the person who received my liver. He was only in his 30s. I do not regret it," says defendant, Liu Qiangsheng.

Human organ traffickers have helped raise the percentage of transplants from living donors in China up to 40 percent in the last few years.

This number is up from 15 percent in 2006. Despite this, two-thirds of all organs harvested for transplant in China come from executed criminals.
"Executed prisoners are definitely not a proper source for organ transplants," said Vice Minister Huang Jiefu.
China is trying to move away from the use of executed prisoners and curb illegal trafficking by developing new sources for organ transplants.

A voluntary donation scheme is in the works, but may prove very difficult to implement due to China’s cultural bias against removing organs after death.
While change is in the works, organ trafficking remains a dark and grisly aspect of black market operations.