Fighting Poverty in Brazil

The global economy on the march!

News has reached us that five doctors in Durban, South Africa, have been accused of performing more than 100 illegal kidney transplants. The donors are Brazilians and the recipients are well-to-do, ailing but deserving Israelis.

Two of the five are doctors at the Nelson Mandela Medical School of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Americans have been known to go to South Africa for complicated medical procedures because the cost is low and the quality is high, so we can assume happy landings for all concerned.

But there are complaints. The Brazilians are described as "poor," as though that had anything to do with anything. If a poor person has no money but is philanthropically inclined, a poor person might wish to make a donation of a fine, fresh kidney.

Or a person might want to do it for money, and what is wrong with that? Money is good and in this case the poor person gets to visit South Africa and foreign travel is usually something only well off people get to do.

They have a lot of crime in Brazil so isn't it better for a person to sell a kidney than to get the money by robbery? It's too bad that most poor people don't have more than one to sell, but genetics are making such progress that in your lifetime and mine we may develop a new kind of poor person, one who has a double set of organs. Two hearts, four lungs, two livers, a set to keep, a set to sell. Since poor people tend to be on the dole they might as well be growing organs for worker bees who have probably gotten sick by exhausting themselves producing for the rest of us.

This is a growth industry. It fights poverty. It gives a boost to the airline business and it saves lives. Get those doctors out of jail.