Organ theft
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You had a few too many drinks in a disreputable bar someplace in an otherwise tropical paradise. You don't remember much of last night, only that you are in a bathtub full of ice, and you have some stitches along the sides of your back... is a scenario that probably won't happen to you. Organ theft is in the first world mostly an urban legend, in which a group of enterprising thieves steal people's organs and sell them to someone else.
However, this does not mean that there are no shady practices involving human organs.
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[edit] Myth
Organ donors and recipients need to be a match; if you need a liver, not just any liver will do. You need a donor of the same blood type, similar genes, and a whole slew of other requirements. It's also important that the organs come from a relatively healthy donor, as it's rather counterproductive to get a liver with hepatitis. Potential recipients find themselves on a waiting list, some for years at a time, waiting for a suitable organ. Organs do not survive long outside of the body; kidneys can last for about 36 hours, livers 12 hours, and hearts only 4[1]. If you are lucky enough to have the procedure, you will most likely spend the rest of your life on immunosuppressent drugs to prevent your immune system from destroying the organ. The whole operation is one of the most expensive known to medicine, anywhere from a quarter million to over a million dollars[2].
This means that if you ever find yourself with a pile of organs, you need to
- Find a matching customer
- Do so practically immediately
- Have an adequate location for practicing internal medicine
- Perform a complicated operation with qualified surgeons and support staff
- Do all this with the infrastructure and networks required without anyone finding out what you are doing
Oh, and you have to convince your customers that you actually have some quality control in spite of being a black-market organ dealer (unless they don't care about hepatitis). And those customers also have to have enough money to justify your expensive operation but not enough to simply bribe their way into getting organs the "normal" way.
Totally realistic.
[edit] Fact
That said, a lot of shady business goes on with obtaining organs.
[edit] Shortage of organ donors
Most countries have a larger demand for organs than supply. Some people have fears that if people check the "organ donor" box when they get a driver's license, if they are injured their doctors will intentionally let them die to harvest their organs[3], which is not true. The result is that a number of people who would otherwise donate might be afraid to agree to become organ donors, which increases the suffering of those currently living. The scarcity of organs can push people to try to buy matching organs, often from somebody in the third world.
[edit] Chinese prisoners
China sources a number of organs from recently executed prisoners. However, it's not clear if the prisoners ever agreed to donate their organs.[4] Combined with secret/"random" executions, this leads to the not too far-fetched conspiracy theory that China schedules prisoner executions whenever someone rich/important needs an organ.
[edit] Actual organ theft
In most cases of real organ theft, a poor person agrees to sell one of their kidneys for, say, $10,000. The person willingly goes to a medical center, and the organ is removed. But after the operation, the person is only paid $1000 (if at all), or may not know what they agreed to.[5][6] This is a breach of contract and horrible exploitation of people in absolute poverty, obviously, but is not the scenario people tend to imagine. As the world improves fewer people will be desperate enough to be at risk of these sorts of scams.
Hopefully.
[edit] Witchdoctors
The trade in human body parts predates modern medicine by millenia. While today you might get the kidney of a biker to gain his urine filtration, various cultures have had the belief in the ability to, for example, devour the heart of a warrior to gain his courage. Just watch out for prions.
If you made the decision to be born an albino or pygmy (or an albino pygmy) in Africa, you could find that you are highly valued by your society. That is, your body parts could be worth up to $75,000[7], more than what it'd cost to have someone murdered in the developed world[8], let alone a part of the world that's dirt poor. Really, while the alties may be a danger to themselves, at least their beliefs won't end up getting you killed. Then again....
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ US organ donor website
- ↑ From Organdonor.gov
- ↑ DMV, Ten most common myths of organ donation
- ↑ Harvesting organs from recently executed prisoners
- ↑ "Living cadavers" in Bangladesh: bioviolence in the human organ bazaar. by M. Moniruzzaman Med Anthropol Q. 2012 Mar;26(1):69-91.
- ↑ Growing market for human organs exploits poor by Andy Henion & Monir Moniruzzaman
- ↑ Tanzania albinos murdered for body parts
- ↑ Well, based on what the police "offer" in sting operations against hitmen and/or people looking for hitmen, which is in the $5-$10k range, but considering that they catch the people it's probably not an unbiased sample.