Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism: A Commentary on the Global Realities

Abstract

it was estimated that organ trafficking accounts for 5-10% of the kidney transplants performed annually throughout the world. Patients with sufficient resources in need of organs may travel from one country to another to purchase a kidney (or liver) mainly from a poor person. Transplant centers in 'destination' countries have been well known to encourage the sale of organs to 'tourist' recipients from the 'client' countries.

Does the Iranian model of kidney donation compensation work as an ethical global model?

“…Organ trafficking then exemplifies one of the main objections to a global system of compensated donation: exploitation of the poor and violations of informed consent. This objection states that organ trafficking denies the right of informed consent to donors and vulnerable populations that are exploited and unjustly taken advantage of by the use of abuse, deception, and coercion (Budiani-Saberi and Delmonico, 2008).…”

Sea, Sun, Sand and …. Selecting Surgery: an Exploration of Health, Medical and Wellness

“…These include sex change operations (Connell, 2006;Aizura, 2010), reproductive services and fertility treatment (Pennings, 2002;Blyth & Farrand, 2005), faith healing (Shankar, Paudel & Giri, 2006), unapproved procedures and medicine (Gray & Poland, 2008;Gunter et al 2010), organ transplants (Budiani-Saberi & Delmonico, 2008), assisted-suicide (Higginbotham, 2011) and other procedures.…”

Key issues in transplant tourism

“…Though commercial transplantation is prohibited in most countries [23,35] , the practice of organ sales is common in some parts of the world and drives TT [16] . The countries where such practices are common score poorly on the corruption perception index compiled by Transparency International [36] .…”

“…Examples include, when travel of a related donor and recipient pair is from countries without transplant services to countries where organ transplantation is performed or if an individual travels across borders to donate or receive a transplant from a relative. Any official regulated bilateral or multilateral organ sharing program is not considered TT if it is based on a reciprocated organ sharing program among jurisdictions [16] . The Declaration of Istanbul has clarified the terms "organ trafficking", "transplant commercialisation" and particularly "transplant tourism", by introducing the term, "travel for transplantation" [17] .…”