| The Nasty Side of Organ Transplanting Second Edition Norm Barber Copyright Chapter 20 Robbery, Crash Testing and Odd Things "But obviously you do have to suspect something when the patient is a wealthy Rio socialite and her "donor" is a poor, barefoot "cousin" from the country." Professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Organs Watch 88 You might have heard the "myth" about the man visiting a foreign country, going to a bar, invited for a drink by a young woman then waking up the next morning with a thankyou note and two sewn up wounds from where his kidneys had been removed. This often repeated tale might have taken place in a hotel room in any exotic city in the world. Its unreliability is used as proof that organ thefts and the organ trade don’t exist. The practice of spreading an exaggerated tale is a method of intellectual trickery that harvest promoters use to reduce people’s understanding of the organ theft industry. Egypt Egypt’s prosecutor-general recently launched an investigation into a claim by Members of Parliament that 25 children from a homeless shelter were killed and their organs then sold, for between $9000 and the unlikely sum of $330,000, to wealthy patients in private hospitals. The Egyptian Minister of Social Affairs reportedly told parliament that an investigation found evidence of "financial and administrative irregularities and that the children’s deaths were the result of gross negligence," but it wasn’t exactly clear how the children died. Guardian Weekly 28/3/99 United States of America The American Red Cross was caught stealing the bones of Arizona woman, Heather Ramirez, who died in a car smash. Heather’s parents had agreed to give her eyes to an Eye Bank and heart valves, veins and skin to the Red Cross, but not her bones. The Red Cross took them anyway. An employee forged Heather’s father’s initials on a bone consent form. After this discovery the Red Cross still refused to hand back the bones. Greg and Lucinda Ramirez sued the Red Cross but it was not until two years after her death that the bones were returned. Red Cross spokesman Mike Fulwider said, "We are certainly deeply saddened by this," He didn’t say whether it was the theft of the bones they were sad about or, getting caught. The Orange County Register Newspaper, California. April 16-20, 2000 Lack of Respect As well as 5500 brain dead and 20,000 cardiac dead donors there are also 17,500 bodies donated for medical and research testing in the United States. This includes those used by surgeons and students for practice sessions and as surgery models at conferences with audiences. Four thousand bodies are used for experiments including putting heads in helmets and then dropping them from a height to test the helmet’s strength. Bodies are put in cars that are smashed against walls to test air bag strength. Arms are tied to snowboards then dropped to test wrist braces. Relatives are rarely asked permission. Russel Sherwin of the University of Southern California says he stopped asking permission because too many relatives objected. From Ronald Campbell, William Heisel and Mark Katches. The Orange County Register Newspaper, April16-20, 2000 China David Rothman of the Bellagio Task Force says that China’s "insatiable killing machine" is driven by the rapacious need for fresh and healthy organs. Thousands of prisoners are killed each year as customers arrive for organ transplants. Harry Wu, the Chinese political activist, speaking at a conference at Berkeley’s Department of Anthropology, University of California said, "I interviewed a doctor who routinely participated in removing kidneys from condemned prisoners…she had even participated in a surgery in which two kidneys were removed from a living anaesthetised prisoner late at night. The following morning the prisoner was executed by a bullet in the head" Australia At the Glebe Institute of Forensic Medicine in Sydney Professor Hilton repeatedly stabbed one body to gain knowledge for a crime trial. As mentioned elsewhere in this book, employees belted the head of a crime victim with a hammer for investigative purposes, removed spinal columns and performed nose jobs on bodies. In the late 1980’s pathologists in Queensland were caught taking heart valves during post-mortems that were legally limited to discover cause of death, but not for body parts harvesting. Professor Margaret Allars said in her Independent Inquiry into the removal and use of pituitary glands from corpses, that non-coronial post-mortem consent forms were used to remove organs. The Sydney Heart Valve Bank say their heart valves are collected from Cadaver Donors via "Forensic and Coroner cases". The New South Wales Government Health Department sent me a range of post-mortem consent forms used in its hospitals. Instead of openly asking for organ donations New South Wales hospitals pretend to be asking relatives for a voluntary autopsy of the deceased, but the forms often have obscure clauses agreeing to body parts and organ harvesting. Relatives in shock could easily be fooled into signing away organs thinking the post-mortem was only to discover cause of death. Craig Knowles, Health Minister of the New South Wales Government in Australia, has begun a campaign to stop the secret removal of parts and use of bodies without clear consent. On 26 June 1989 harvesters asked Mike Wynne, of the southern highland region of New South Wales, to consent to organ removal from his "brain dead" nephew whose family had been killed in a car smash. Mike later said, "They didn’t bully me into it, but they sort of did what seemed like a sales pitch." Mike, as the closest surviving relative, consented for certain organs to be removed because the boy reputedly had wanted to be an organ donor upon death. He didn’t consent for his nephew’s eye removal but the hospital took them anyway. Mike only discovered this when they sent him a bill for X-Rays. What most offended Mike was the reaction of the hospital. He said, "…I was treated with complete disregard afterwards." He also thought his nephew had been moved to another hospital in preparation for harvesting rather than treatment.89 Germany The University of Heidelberg, acting on behalf of the car industry, used donated children’s bodies for crash testing instead of dummies. Dummies cost two thousand marks while bodies could be obtained from the parents for a few hundred marks. 90 Singapore and Taiwan Japanese kidney patients travel to Singapore and Taiwan to arrange purchase of organs obtained without consent from executed Chinese prisoners. England Dutch Professor Dick van Velzen in Liverpool, England was caught after removing 850 organs from dead children for a research project without consent from parents. Rather than being a lone robber Professor van Velzen was acting out the status quo behaviour in the British medical system. The Independent (London) December 5, 1999 and The Daily Telegraph (London) December 4, 1999 In 1992 Indian medical institutions were selling kidneys to private English Hospitals. D. Brahams; “Kidneys for sale by live donors." Lancet Israel/Palestine As in China, where organ removal is a form of punishment for prisoners, so the removal of organs from defeated enemies may have become an Israeli spoil of war. West Bank, 8th of February 1988 Nineteen years old Khader Elias Tarazi, a Christian Palestinian, went shopping for groceries in the Gaza. Upon returning with two bags on his bicycle he crossed a road near a stone throwing demonstration where the stone throwers were fleeing Israeli Army soldiers. Mistakenly they grabbed Khader and beat his head and body with truncheons. Nearby shopkeepers shouted Khader wasn’t involved in the demonstration but soldiers, now nine of them, broke an arm and a leg. They continued the beating then threw him onto the bonnet of their jeep handcuffing the now unconscious Khader to the front crash bar. They drove off continually braking hard and he sustained further injuries including a broken back, skull injuries and his face kept banging against the bonnet. The Israeli doctor at the Military Prison in Gaza refused to attend Khader because of his serious injuries and because there wasn’t the necessary paperwork. He was taken to Ansar Two prison and thrown into a prisoner tent holding thirty to forty prisoners. They screamed that he must be taken to hospital and the guards responded by forcing them to strip naked and stand outside in the winter cold. Khader died in the tent and later was taken to Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva and pronounced dead. Khader’s mother was outside the prison where Israeli officials denied they had a prisoner by his name inside. Later, they admitted he was inside but said he must have been very sick when he went out shopping because he was now dead. Israeli officials refused to hand over the body and it was transferred to Abu Kabeer hospital, officially for a post-mortem. Mrs Tarazi told David Yallop that, during this time, many of the organs were illegally removed from his body. No inquiry was made into the death and the Tarazi family were told if they continued to ask for an inquiry they would be looking for trouble. Five months later soldiers and secret police visited the Tarazi house at midnight, beat up Khader’s brother and father and threw the former into Ansar Three prison. 2nd of April, 1988 Twenty-three year old Salim Khalef Al Shaer, of Bethlehem, joined a Saturday demonstration against the Israelis. One soldier shot him in the face from fifteen metres. To stop the Israeli soldiers taking the body for organ removal his friends rushed the body to the closest mosque and called for the family. The funeral service began immediately. When the procession came out of the mosque for its trip to the gravesite the Army was waiting. Helicopters dropped teargas canisters and large stones onto the mourners. Ninety minutes after walking out of his house Salim was buried in his grave. West Bank, 30th of October, 1988 When Roman Catholic Palestinians were leaving mass they were confronted by the Israeli Army and began throwing stones. Nineteen-year old Iyad Bishara Abu Saada was killed by a plastic bullet that cut an abdominal artery. The same grim chase for the body entailed. The mourners eluded the Israelis and Iyad was buried a few hours later. Somewhat predictably the Israelis fired teargas canisters into the family home four days later. Mrs Saada told David Yallop the practice of removing organs was common and named Arab and Israeli hospitals where she said organs were removed. She said doctors, accompanied by soldiers, offered large amounts of money to parents of the killed. 91 Moldavia and India Various suburbs and villages in India and Moldavia specialise in kidney selling where “donors” will be lured to hospitals or clinics away from their homes. They may be promised two thousand American dollars or complex surgery to remedy another ailment. After the kidney harvest the seller may not get full payment and usually won’t be treated for any post-harvest complications. Israel has a government policy of reducing dialysis costs by getting Moldavian kidneys via Turkish hospitals. The Israelis arrange Moldavians to travel to Turkey where doctors harvest one of their kidneys. An Israeli on dialysis, visiting Turkey, then gets the Moldavian kidney inserted into his or her abdomen and returns to Israel. Some Indian cities specialise in supplying Arab organ buyers while other cities cater for rich Asian customers. Most participants get substantial rewards from the process except the peasants who provide their organs. Like the Moldavians some end up with little money and suffer health problems that the harvesters and organ recipients won’t help with. |