Iraq Organ Trade Driven By Poverty

In Iraq, where a fifth of people live in poverty and where unemployment is at least 18 percent, increasingly more people must resort to selling their organs on the black market to make ends meet, Al Jazeera reports. According to the report, the capital Baghdad is somewhat of a central hub for the trade, with hundreds of people estimated to have sold organs such as their kidneys to dealers who then sell them for massive profits to desperately ill people willing to pay.

According to one man interviewed, "I got a kidney for my cousin through dealers outside the hospital. It cost us more than $15,000. Most of it went to dealers who take two-thirds of the amount and only one-third went to the donor." Al Jazeera also notes that donating one's organ is perfectly legal, while selling it is expressly forbidden. However, doctors in clinics who perform the transplants have no way of enforcing the law because there is no way to tell if the donor is willingly charitable or in pursuit of commercial gain. And as a result of the organ boom, many in need of new organs are now coming to Iraq from all over the Middle East, according to Al Jazeera.

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Comments

[RightWingMarine]

01:03 PM on 07/20/2009

other than allow healthy people to feel morally superior to the ill what is the point of a organ sales ban?
Let's look at this from a poor persons point of view. And not American poor who, on average, have A/C, a big screen TV, a microwave and live in a home that is larger than the middle class of much of Europe. Let's look at the abject poor in crushing poverty as mentioned in this article. Is this poor person better off or worse off if he is free to sell a kidney on the open market? Is the buyer of said kidney better off or worse off buying a kidney and getting off dialysis or waiting on a donor list for a kidney that may never come?

Lastly, either I own my body or I don't. If I own my body and I choose to have part of it cut off and sell that part to someone for mutual benefit, who are you to tell me no?

[AllanNJ]

11:11 AM on 07/20/2009

Well, what I would like to know is, who took the $20 billion that GW shipped off to Iraq on palats in 2003? Whoever that is, maybe they would like to help pay for universal health care here in the USA.

[MemoryAlpha]

10:52 AM on 07/20/2009

Observation:
We have turned Iraq into a disaster area.

[Jaywalkker]

11:31 AM on 07/20/2009

That is the most unequivocal statement I've ever seen you make. And I wholeheartedly agree.

[Rangergirl]

10:47 AM on 07/20/2009

This practice is going on in other countries as well....India, and China.....and others probablly. Frightning ......We sure helped fix Iraq didn't we? We never should have gone to war with them...Lies by president Cheney...(he ran the Country about Iraq) and Bush.....took us down a slippery slope ....We should get out of there now....Since our Commanders have their hands tied by the Government over there.

[jsgaetano]

10:44 AM on 07/20/2009

Organ trading? I'd say it's more like organ selling: it's not like you are giving them two slightly used pancreas' for a spleen.

[ranch111]

10:36 AM on 07/20/2009

Looks like the U.S. has fixed things over in Iraq. War=Peace.