Tackling a gruesome trade

A new report suggests some necessary steps for dealing with organ trafficking, a problem that has burst into the headlines in recent months.

Five rabbis were indicted in July after an investigation in New Jersey stumbled upon a pipeline apparently involving poor Israeli Jews being trafficked into the United States to sell their kidneys. One rabbi allegedly paid $10,000 to the kidney seller and pocketed $100,000 as his fee. The criminal complaint quotes him as saying he had been in the organ business for a decade.

Also last summer, a North Carolina tissue bank was involved in a recall of tainted tissues obtained from funeral homes, whose directors were allegedly paid $1,000 a body. And reports continue to appear of body parts being trafficked for money in Germany, Latvia, Egypt, Brazil, the Philippines, Moldova, Albania, China, and many other nations. Some estimates say bought kidneys are used in up to 5 percent of transplants.

I coauthored a report, commissioned by the United Nations and the Council of Europe and released last week, on what to do about this illicit and repugnant trade in human flesh. It calls on national and international organizations to take steps to monitor trafficking in order to gather solid information on the extent of the problem.

The report calls for two other, more important steps. First, it says that transplant teams and hospitals must be held accountable for the organs and tissues they transplant. They should be responsible for making sure that the requisite consent is in place and that middlemen aren't exploiting people for their body parts.

Second, it says there is no place in the transplant world for profiting from organs and tissues. The buying of body parts leads to organs and tissues of poor quality from sick sellers. It also leads to exploitation of the poor.

Those with no other choice but to sell a kidney, an eye, or a loved one's body wind up at the mercy of brokers who have no concern for their welfare or safety. Using regulation of the trade to protect such people, who are almost always grimly poor and usually illiterate, is a pipe dream. Human dignity would seem to require that a person be able to make a living without having to maim himself. And medical ethics would seem to prohibit taking people's parts for profit.

Eliminating trafficking in human organs and tissues would be difficult, both in the United States and around the world. Shortages are all too real, and sometimes the rich are willing to exploit the poor to have a chance at life.

But mixing money and body parts is dangerous for both sellers and buyers. It is time for the world to do what it can to bring an end to this repulsive business.