Organ Transplant Scam Shocks India: Urban Myth is Real

  • Thread starter Thread starter EnumaElish
  • Start date Start date
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
Sign up Log in
7 replies · 3K views
EnumaElish
Science Advisor
Messages
2,348
Reaction score
124
Urban myth is real!

Organ transplant scam shocks India

By SAM DOLNICK, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 12 minutes ago

GURGAON, India - The last things Mohammed Salim remembered were the knees pinning him to the ground, the guns pointed at his head, and, finally, the injection that sent him into oblivion.

When he awoke, he was in agonizing pain, uncertain where he was or why he was wearing a hospital gown.

"We have taken your kidney," a masked man calmly explained. "If you tell anyone, we'll shoot you."

Salim was one of the last victims in an organ transplant racket that police believe sold up to 500 kidneys to clients who traveled to India from around the world over the past nine years.

...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080130/ap_on_re_as/india_kidney_racket

I guess where there is a profit, there is a willing villain.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Biology news on Phys.org

Discussion

I read this the other day, it's horrible.
 
How on Earth do they get a match? Someone had to be matching them and keeping them on file till they had a matching buyer...Can a kidney be matched by blood test? Imagine, You go to your doctor for a cold, He takes some blood "just as a precaution" he tells you. 6 months later an order comes in that you match. You wake up on your livingroom floor minus a kidney...evil.
 
Since an organ only lives outside the body for a few hours, and organ compatibility (HLA antigens, etc.) is a very tricky affair, it does seem pretty odd that anyone could extract a kidney from a stranger and actually find a recipient for it before it dies...

Yes, all you'd need to determine a match is a blood sample, but even that would seem hard to get. If you know someone needs a kidney, what do you do? Go stick needles into a bunch of people on a train until you find one that matches? :smile:

- Warren
 
Pretty sad. Have you seen what they do with executed prisoners in China. Let alone how they kill them?
 
Don't they just shoot them in the back of the head? I'll take that over lethal injection any day.

Or do you mean they have mobile Death Vans, delivering executions right to your door? Because that is pretty horrendous.
 
Then they send a bill to your family for the bullet.