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Norberto Papa, left, and Napoleon Custodio reveal their scars from a kidney operation in
Manila, Philippines.
Manila, Philippines.
Philippines Restricts Organ Transplants to Foreigners
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Faced with a growing number of poor people selling their organs to patients from foreign countries, the Philippines bans most transplants to nonresidents.
30-Second Summary
Anyone who goes to the Philippines for an organ transplant from a nonrelative could now face up to 20 years in prison, the country’s health secretary has announced. According to AFP, the Philippine Society of Nephrology calls the country “a world ‘hotspot’ for human organ trafficking.”
In the United States alone, nearly 100,000 people are waiting for organ transplants.
Rupert Wingfield Hayes of the BBC went undercover in China looking for a liver. When he asks hospital officials where one would come from, he learns there will be “a sudden abundance of organs” after a scheduled increase in prisoner executions.
The debate continues as to whether organs should be sold in the United States, something that’s been prohibited since 1984. Harold Kyriazi, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School who runs his own site, OrganSelling.com, says allowing sales would increase the supply by 200 percent.
Claire Andre and Manuel Velasquez, in the article “Kidneys for Sale,” say an organ market would be “unjust” because it would “benefit the wealthy while putting pressures on the poor to endanger their own health.”
In the United States alone, nearly 100,000 people are waiting for organ transplants.
Rupert Wingfield Hayes of the BBC went undercover in China looking for a liver. When he asks hospital officials where one would come from, he learns there will be “a sudden abundance of organs” after a scheduled increase in prisoner executions.
The debate continues as to whether organs should be sold in the United States, something that’s been prohibited since 1984. Harold Kyriazi, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School who runs his own site, OrganSelling.com, says allowing sales would increase the supply by 200 percent.
Claire Andre and Manuel Velasquez, in the article “Kidneys for Sale,” say an organ market would be “unjust” because it would “benefit the wealthy while putting pressures on the poor to endanger their own health.”
Headline Links: The Philippines ban organ transplants for foreigners
More than 60 percent of the nation’s kidney transplants were to people from the Middle East and Europe, well over the 10 percent limit set by the Philippine’s Health Ministry.
Source: AFP
China executes more people in a year than the rest of the world put combined, and the country has also become an organ transplant hub, reports the BBC.
Source: BBC
Opinion & Analysis: Arguments for and against organ sales
Kyriazi, responding to the argument that selling organs would taint the transplant process with greed, and discourage people from donating, says doctors and hospitals already profit from the process. He adds: “And, frankly, I wouldn’t want to have my life depend entirely on a stranger’s generosity when it could more reliably depend on their own self-interest.”
Source: OrganSelling.com
Velasquez and Andre also say, “People living in extreme poverty are often desperate and ill-informed. Profit seekers would take advantage of this, obtaining ‘consent’ from those who feel compelled by necessity to sell their organs, and who may not have a clear idea of the consequences of what they were doing.”
Source: Santa Clara University Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
Background: Organ transplant, waiting list statistics
So far in 2008 there have been nearly 2,200 organ transplants in the United States. More than 99,000 people are on a transplant waiting list in America, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.
Source: The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network
Related Topic: Surgeon accused of hastening death for organs
Earlier this year, Hootan C. Roozrokh, a surgeon in California, was charged after prosecutors accused him of prescribing improper medications and doses to hasten a 25-year-old man’s death in order to harvest his liver and kidneys. The man, Ruben Navarro, had a neurological disorder and was in an assisted living facility when he was found unconscious with breathing and heart problems one day in January 2006. His brain was damaged from lack of oxygen, and hospital doctors said he’d never recover. He died in early February 2006.
Source: findingDulcinea
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