International Organ Trafficking is a Growing Concern

There is a growing international shortage of human organs suitable for transplant. This is a problem that is being exacerbated by the recent upturn in the number of balck market organs.^[1] Exploiting poor donors, especially for kidneys, is creating a kind of "medical apartheid" that risks turning public opinion against transplantation schemes and could threaten rich states' legal donation programs.^[2] The World Health Organization (WHO) says that black market organ donations account for up to 10 percent of transplants worldwide.^[3]

Transplantation is a growing problem in wealthier states because waiting lists are growing far faster than the supply of organs.^[4] There are about 95,000 people waiting for kidney transplants in the United States and about 65,000 in Europe, annual transplant rates run about 25,000 in the United States and 16,000 in Europe; something like 10,000 kidneys are transplanted every year from poor living donors who are paid very little for something so valuable, according to Michael Bos of the Netherlands Health Council.^[5]

Kidneys are in dramatically short supply, prompting a black market where they are “donated” by the poor and sold to rich recipients for many thousands of dollars.^[6] This situation undermines all of the safe donation programs in industrialized states, it worsens the growing shortage, and it is remarkably dangerous for the donor and the donee.

U.S. and European laws ban the sale of human organs, and most tissue for legal transplant is taken fresh from the cadavers of the newly deceased.^[7] A smaller amount also comes from live donors, mostly people giving to save the life of a relative or friend. But these supplies cannot expand to meet the booming demand.^[8] Francis Delmonico of Harvard Medical School gave one example of the astonishing demand that is creating this market, a New Yorker paid $60,000 to receive a kidney in a South African hospital from a Brazilian who was paid $6,000 for it; the deal was brokered by an Israeli businessman.^[9]

National Organ Transplant Act makes all of the aforementioned activities federal crimes. 42 U.S.C. §274e states that it “shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation if the transfer affects interstate commerce.”^[10] Any person who violates this law shall be fined not more than $50,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.^[11]

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^[1] Tom Heneghan, Human organ trafficking threatens donation schemes, Reuters (via Yahoo News), Apr 2, 2007, available at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070402/hl_nm/organs_dc (last visited Apr 2, 2007).
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] Id.
^[7] Id.
^[8] Caused partially by medical advances that make transplantation more reliable and illnesses that are causing more cases of kidney failure. Id.
^[9] Id.
^[10] 42 U.S.C. §274e(a) (2007).
^[11] Id. at §274e(b).