Four years ago, Moldova cut off the thriving baby
adoption trade due to an - an unfounded - fear the toddlers
were being dissected for spare organs. According to the
Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, the Romanians are investigating
similar allegations in Israel and have withheld permission
to adopt Romanian babies from dozens of eager and out of
pocket couples. American authorities are scrutinizing a
two year old Moldovan harvesting operation based in the
United States.
Organ theft and trading in Ukraine is a smooth operation.
According to news agencies, in August 2002, three
Ukrainian doctors were charged in Lvov with trafficking
in the organs of victims of road accidents. The doctors
used helicopters to ferry kidneys and livers to colluding
hospitals. They charged up to $19,000 per organ.
The West Australian daily surveyed in January 2002 the
thriving organs business in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Sellers
are offering their wares openly, through newspaper ads.
Prices reach up to $68,000. Compared to an average
monthly wage of less than $200, this is an unimaginable
fortune.
National health insurance schemes turn a blind eye.
Israel's participates in the costs of purchasing organs
abroad, though only subject to rigorous vetting of the
sources of the donation. Still, a May 2001 article in a the
New York Times Magazine, quotes "the coordinator of
kidney transplantation at Hadassah University Hospital in
Jerusalem (as saying that) 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".
Many Israelis - attempting to avoid scrutiny - travel to
east Europe, accompanied by Israeli doctors, to perform
the transplantation surgery. These junkets are
euphemistically known as "transplant tourism". Clinics
have sprouted all over the benighted region. Israeli
doctors have recently visited impoverished Macedonia,
Bulgaria, Kosovo and Yugoslavia to discuss with local
businessmen and doctors the setting up of kidney
transplant clinics.
Such open involvement in what can be charitably
described as a latter day slave trade gives rise to a new
wave of thinly disguised anti-Semitism. The Ukrainian
Echo, quoting the Ukrinform news agency, reported, on
January 7, 2002, that, implausibly, a Ukrainian guest
worker died in Tel-Aviv in mysterious circumstances and
his heart was removed. The Interpol, according to the
paper, is investigating this lurid affair.
According to scholars, reports of organ thefts and related
abductions, mainly of children, have been rife in Poland
and Russia at least since 1991. The buyers are supposed to
be rich Arabs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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