Life
After Death. Parkridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics, September 28, 2000 "After undergoing two kidney transplants, Hagai Boaz questions why the number of organ donations in Israel is among the lowest in the world - despite Israeli society's self-image as one founded on the ethic of 'he who saves a single life saves an entire world,' and mutual responsibility ... According to data accumulated by the National Center for Transplants, Israel has one of the lowest number of donors in the world. This statistic reveals a few gloomy facts about Israeli society and has led to the emergence of other avenues for those desperate to obtain organs: the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars for a transplant overseas or the illicit trade in human organs. The low percentage of Israelis prepared to donate organs is perhaps surprising considering the self-image of a Jewish society founded on the ethic that 'all Jews are responsible for one another' and 'he who saves a single life saves an entire world.'" 1998 ICIJ Award Finalists/Onel of Kanal D Arena. ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists), 1998 "'The International Transplant Mafia,' broadcast in two installments in 1997, exposed a human organ black-market network linking Turkey, the Czech Republic, and Israel. An Istanbul man, struggling to raise two young children, had agreed to sell one of his kidneys for $8,000 U.S. dollars but later contacted Arena, Turkey's lead investigative TV program, fearing that more than a kidney might be lost. An Arena reporter with a hidden camera accompanied him over the next several days to meetings with organ brokers and a Turkish surgeon. The operation was aborted at the last minute, when the Arena crew entered the hospital, cameras rolling. The surgeon was denounced by the country's medical board and was later tried, but Arena discovered another syndicate operating several months later in another city. This time posing as the donor, an Arena reporter met with an organ broker and agreed to sell his kidney for $5,000. A trip to the Czech Republic for the operation fell apart after Arena alerted police. The man confessed he was paid to arrange kidney transplants by his boss in Israel, where Arena reporters later unsuccessfully searched for the syndicate boss. Instead, they found the president of an association of patients waiting for kidney transplants, who said 50 Israelis had been saved in the last year by Turkish kidneys." This Little Kidney Went to Market. New York Times Magazine (posted at freerepublic.com), May 26, 2001 "Moshe lives in Israel, which happens to be one of the more active nations in the international organ-trafficking market. The market, which is completely illegal, is so complex and well organized that a single transaction often crosses three continents ... Yet in Israel and a handful of other nations, including India, Turkey, China, Russia and Iraq, organ sales are conducted with only a scant nod toward secrecy. In Israel, there is even tacit government acceptance of the practice -- the national health-insurance program covers part, and sometimes all, of the cost of brokered transplants. Insurance companies are happy to pay, since the cost of kidney surgery, even in the relatively short run, is less than the cost of dialysis. According to the coordinator of kidney transplantation at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem, 60 of the 244 patients currently receiving post-transplant care purchased their new kidney from a stranger -- just short of 25 percent of the patients at one of Israel's largest medical centers participating in the organ business. Relatively few transplant operations, illegal or legal, take place in Israel. Every proposed kidney transplant in the country between two unrelated people is carefully screened for evidence of impropriety by a national committee. Therefore, almost all of these illegal surgeries are performed elsewhere, in nations where the laws are easier to duck, including the United States. Israel also does not contribute much to the supply side of the equation. Organ donation is extremely low; an estimated 3 percent of Israelis have signed donor cards .... Paying for an organ has become so routine in Israel that there have been instances in which a patient has elected not to accept the offer of a kidney donation from a well-matched relative. 'Why risk harm to a family member?' one patient told me. Instead, these patients have decided that purchasing a kidney from someone they've never met -- in almost all cases someone who is impoverished and living in a foreign land -- is a far more palatable option."
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