The AP recently reported that China is now outlawing organ markets. Apparently denizens of China do not their own body, especially their gooey innards. This prohibition is a curious action due in part that it most certainly does not increase the supply of a chronically undersupplied industry (i.e. historically donors are few and far between).
In fact, Wired magazine recently reviewed a book called Body Brokers: Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains. Ever wonder where medical schools get cadivars to work on? If you guessed other countries – including China – you might be correct.
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Actually the state wants to be a monopolistic supplier – a market might threaten their political prisoner execution business (shades of Larry Niven’s “Jigsaw Man”).
Would it be a real improvement to auction the organs of the executed? Or would it be stolen merchandise?
From the article:
Human rights groups say many organs — including those transplanted into wealthy foreigners — come from executed prisoners who may not have given their permission, claims China routinely denies. Voluntary donations remain far below demand, partly because of cultural biases against organ removal.
Asia Times (one of my other daily reads) had a good article on the state of property rights in China:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HC28Ad03.html
Though I think they are confusing the definition of the word “socialist” a bit, but there is anarchy in the property “markets” there, and it is probably labeled as some form of capitalism.
And you think organs would be a good thing in a land where property rights and ownership are nebulous?
But I would suggest anyone reading this read the article instead. It shows the problems of trying to (re)introduce private property rights. I don’t agree with all the conclusions, but the problems should provoke much thought.
Apparently I’m right about Chinese Organlegging, I could just have waited a few days for this:
Asian Times Article: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD04Ad01.html Japanese Flock to China for Organ Transplants.
He was astonished by just how easy it was. Ten days after contacting a Japanese broker in China in February, he was lying on an operating table in a Shanghai hospital receiving a newkidney. A doctor had only examined him that morning. “It was so fast I was scared,” he said.
The “donor” was an executed man, the price 6.8 million yen (about US$80,000). “It was cheap [in comparison to the cost of my life],” said a recovering Hokamura, now back in Kyushu in southern Japan where he runs a construction-related business. “I can always earn more money.”
Ah, the wonders of free trade and the market. It even supplies organs to those who want them. As long as you don’t worry where they come from.
Las medidas sin embargo no resuelven el principal problema que es la escasez en la oferta de órganos y una alta demanda, las cuales generan el mercado negro de órganos.
Los hospitales secretamente remueven órganos de pacientes que mueren en accidentes sin informar a los familiares.
Las organizaciones internacionales han denunciado que la mayor cosecha de órganos viene de los prisioneros ejecutados, cuyos cuerpos salen del patio de ejecución directamente al hospital donde todos sus órganos son extraídos.
Sin embargo, Pekín ha asegurado que ese porcentaje es insignificante y que en todos los casos se hace con el “consentimiento del condenado o su familia”.
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