In China, Selling Your Organs for Cash or an Ipad 2 is a Mouse Click Away

The illegal organ trade is widespread in China. It's made easier by a lack of proper regulations and hospital loopholes.

1.5 million Chinese require organ transplants, however, only 10,000 receive them each year. 65% of the organs come from executed prisoners. But new government regulations have reduced the number of organs available for transplant, and few Chinese agree to donate their organs upon death, widening the gap between supply and demand.

A 17-year-old student in Anhui Province sold one of his kidneys for 20,000 yuan only to buy an iPad 2. Now, with his health getting worse, the boy is feeling regret but it is too late, the Global Times reported today.

"I wanted to buy an iPad 2 but could not afford it," said the boy surnamed Zheng in Huaishan City. "A broker contacted me on the Internet and said he could help me sell one kidney for 20,000 yuan."

On April 28 Zheng went to Chenzhou City in neighboring Hunan Province for the kidney removal surgery arranged by the broker. His parents knew nothing about it, Zheng said. He was paid 22,000 yuan after his right kidney was taken out at the Chenzhou No. 198 Hospital.

When he returned home, his mother found out and reported to the police immediately. But they could not locate the broker whose cell phone was always powered off, the report said.

It turned out that the Chenzhou No. 198 Hospital was not qualified to perform organ transplant. The hospital claimed they had no idea about Zheng's surgery because the department that did the surgery had been contracted to a Fujian businessman.

The case is still under investigation, the report said.

Links:

The Red Market On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers

Regarding other black markets, the author of the book, Scott Carney, said:

I actually don't go into Kosovo at all in the book. It's a shame because what happened there during the war is horrible. In fact, I found during my research that there were far too many ways that the body is sold illegally for me to ever possibly cover. There are huge gaps where I don't explore organ rings in south america, the bone thefts of Biological Tissue Services in New Jersey, the NY Rabbi caught in a kidney ring, plastinated cadavers in South Shore Seaport. The list is extensive. Instead I have tried my best to look at ten or twelve distinct markets and look a similarities that might provide a lens to examine all red markets.