Transplant Tourism
Recipient and Vendor Trafficking
What should TTS do about these practices?
This statement was recently forthcoming from the WHO as component of the drafted guiding principles by Luc Noel:
"A shortage of organs, together with the high cost of health care in developed countries, has led to the growth
of "transplant tourism", in which centres in some developing countries use the internet and other means to solicit
patients to travel abroad to receive a transplant at a "bargain" price, "all donor costs included". Likewise,
commercial traffic in organs - and even traffic in organ donors who leave their home countries in search of
financial rewards for donating their kidneys- continues to be a serious problem, particularly in countries whose
transplant programmes cater to foreign recipients.
The occurrence of unethical practices (such as organ
trafficking and transplant tourism) which take advantage of poor and vulnerable populations makes clear
that better regulation is crucial if live donors are to be adequately protected from exploitation and
physical harm".
At the recent Rotterdam conference on law and ethics of transplantation the following statement was developed:
"This congress condemns without reservation any practice that subverts or violates a potential donor's human
rights or that involves coercion or deception. 'Trafficking in human beings' shall mean the recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other
forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, or deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability
or of the giving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person,
for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include....the removal of organs. (Art 4, Council of Europe
Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings).
Insurance companies in affluent countries are now the enablers of patients to go out of country to undergo
transplantation from vendors or exploited to sell their organs.
These patients not infrequently return to the home country sick with tuberculosis hepatitis or HIV contracted
that from organ donors inadequately screened. Transplantation.
2006 Nov 15;82(9):1130-5 Outcomes of commercial renal transplantation: a Canadian experience. Prasad GV et al.
The Transplantation Society is to work with the WHO to address this issue. Your thoughts would be welcome as
to a resolve, keeping in mind that The Transplantation Society and the WHO are opposed to cash payments for
organs.
TTS policy takes into account the experience of Iran and the economic forces that have made that markets what
it is. Price fixing is not attainable. No international police could prevent price differences by gender and
ethnicity and age of the vendor.
Vendors are now being shipped from one country to another; recipients are seeking best price from one country
to another.
Again we look to replies as to what solutions TTS could endorse with the WHO.
Please email to Filomena Picciano
(dso@transplantation-soc.org)
or myself
(dma@transplantation-soc.org),
we
look forward to your responses and input.
On a positive note, I recently visited the Organización Nacional de Trasplantes (ONT) in Madrid and attended
the graduation ceremony of the ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL TRAINING COURSE ON TRANSPLANT COORDINATION as the guest of Dr. Rafael Matesanz
TTS and ONT have forged a relationship to help develop deceased organ donation in Central and South America.
