OK, so the Swedes and the Israelis are going at it hammer and thongs over allegations of body-part stealing. I have heard the Chinese (ever into recycling) sell the parts of executed prisoners. Latin America is always awash in rumors about Gringos stealing the kidneys of local children.
Certainly there have been abuses (witness the rabbi in th New York area recently).
But:
Has there ever been a case of an organized ring of kidnappers and organ thieves?
and
What is the most egregious case of abuse of this sort?
UCLA got in to some deep shit several years back over body parts going missing from the willed donor program. I don’t think this rises to kidnapping, since the cadavers in question were already cadavers, but it does cover the theft aspect pretty well.
There was this guy, who, like, picked up this beautiful woman at a bar, and they went back to his apartment, and he wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, and there’s this note that says CALL 911 YOU’RE OUT A KIDNEY.
I swear, it’s true! My friend’s friend knows the guy!
I have read of cases, in India, where some poor villager goes in for some minor surgery and comes out missing some other organ that was later sold by the hospital on the organ market.
No consent or anything, they just took it.
Hard to document as what’s a reliable source in this instance?
I have read in reliable papers of poor folks in other countries entering into contracts to sell their organs, and then not being paid. But I have never read a reliable case of organs simply being stolen from a living person.
A series of trials in upstate NY just concluded, alleging that a number of funeral homes were harvesting body parts and selling them without permission. This story from the last trial includes details on the larger operation.
I’m sure this is not the only place and time this has happened.
(FWIW, I searched for the article simply to second what IAmNotSpartacus had said about UCLA. My father died about a decade ago, and Allen Tyler accepted his body into the UTMB system. After a year passed, Mom called to ask when she would receive the ashes and was told that there was some sort of unspecified delay. She received the box quite some time later. No, I haven’t shared the story with Mom and probably never will.)
Whaddya know! Quite the opposite of this urban legend!
I thought organs for transplantation had to be still-pulsating fresh. If funeral homes are selling body parts, it couldn’t be for organ transplantation. But corneas, joints, other stuff…maybe so?
Wasn’t there some kind of a organ selling scandal in New York a few years ago? I think the most famous cadaver belonged to the original host of Masterpiece Theater, whose name escapes me right now, maybe Alastair Sims?
