USA - Organ Purchases Abroad on the Rise

Transplant tourism increasingly popular due to high number of patients in need of organs

Confronted with a long waiting list of patients requiring organ transplants, more Americans are ready to travel abroad to purchase a liver, a kidney or even a heart.

We are talking about "transplant tourism," an increasingly popular practice, but at the same time, extremely dangerous. In 1984, the United States administration imposed a ban on the purchase and sale of human organs, but not on "transplant tourism", the practice whereby a person travels abroad specifically to receive a vital organ in exchange for a sum of money which covers the price of such an organ.

Although there are no exact figures that can illustrate the real scope of this problem, over the last 10 years, the UCLA Medical Center's emergency room has seen 33 patients with serious complications after undergoing organ transplants abroad.

Transplant tourism is a risky and macabre business, says Gabriel Danovitch, medical director of the kidney and pancreas transplant program at UCLA. According to the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group, an organization founded to regulate and fight this practice, "a very large number of patients who have purchased kidneys have developed serious infections or have died."

Although Dr. Danovitch stresses that this form of tourism is not a "large-scale problem" in the United States, the World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that thousands of people in the world are not willing to wait and thus engage in this practice every year without weighing the potentially fatal consequences.

In recent years the United States has witnessed an increasing demand for transplant organs, a fact that in Danovitch's opinion is a consequence of "a tsunami of renal disorders caused by hypertension, obesity and diabetes as a result of poor food habits and a sedentary lifestyle."

But, while the demand for vital organs is on the increase due to the deterioration of Americans' health, the number of donors is not increasing proportionately.

For almost a year, 19-year-old Giovanna Martínez has been dependent on a dialysis machine, requiring three treatments a week of three hours per session. She pointed out that she cannot go to school because she cannot afford the cost, and she cannot work because she has to take three hours off her shift every two days for dialysis treatment.

Dr. Carl Gurshkin, professor of Pediatrics at Los Angeles Children's Hospital, declared that a kidney for transplant should be carefully screened before surgery to ensure an appropriate match with the recipient. Donor and recipient should have the same blood type and undergo a series of tests.

Additionally, patients who need more than one organ have priority, followed by children. Approximately 85% of the patients in this LA medical institution are Latinos.

Therefore, Gurshkin emphasized, "Being at the top of the waiting list does not mean that this person is the first to get an organ. It is a matter of medicine, health and luck." Juan and Verónica López were living in distress and at risk while waiting for an organ.

Their baby, Sebastián, who is only seven months old, was born with a congenital heart malformation which was diagnosed before his birth.

Doctors gave him only a few weeks to live, but he is still clinging to life. "Sebastián is an example of strength; he has lived on against all prognoses.

If God decides that his time has come, I will be proud to donate my son's organs, so that he can give life to other children," said his mother, who in spite of the love she feels for her son, affirmed that she would never buy a heart for her baby to keep him alive, because she believes such a thing involves organized crime.

However, Dr. Danovitch pointed out that not everyone thinks the same way as Sebastián's parents. There are people in urgent need that would do anything in desperation, however unethical, to save their own lives or the life of a loved one.

Recently making headlines in the United States was the case of Rabbi Levy Izhak Rosenbaum - the first person convicted there of selling and trafficking in human organs.

A New York resident, Rosenbaum pleaded guilty to illegally buying kidneys from live Israeli donors for $10,000 each, which were transplanted into three New Jersey residents, who had paid at least $120,000 for the transaction.

The case of Rosenbaum, whose sentencing is set for February 2, 2012, has brought the problem to the forefront that organ trafficking poses in the United States and around the globe. Transplant tourism started in the mid-1990s when medical researchers proved that, for organ transplants, a direct blood type match between the donor and the recipient was not needed.

Dr. Danovitch emphasized that this "opened the door to donating an organ and receiving a transplant" paving the way for the emergence of organ trafficking on the black market by exploiting vulnerable people who become "donors" out of economic need or as victims of organized crime.

This practice has become popular in countries such as Colombia, Egypt and the Philippines, according to the Istanbul Declaration - an organization that is supported by physicians and researchers of countries in which transplants are performed and of which Danovitch is a member.

Dr. Danovitch went on to explain that "clients" come from countries with higher purchasing power where laws regulating organ transplants are stricter, such as the United States and Japan. He emphasized: "Colombia is a leader in organ trafficking.

We believe that 'donors' are fatal casualties from the guerrilla war, or people who died and whose bodies were never claimed." Dr. Danovitch observed that for some Japanese and U.S. citizens it is easier to pay up to $200,000 for a liver in Colombia than to wait close to 10 years to receive an organ transplant.

Mayra Azanza

Granma International

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