To buyy, kidneys; $5000

Press, 22 October 1983, Page 17

To buyy, kidneys; $5000

An American doctor with a prison record has set up the world’s first company to arrange the sale of human kidneys from live Third World donors at $lO,OOO a transplant. Dr Barry Jacobs, medical director of the Virginia-based International Kidney Exchange, said donors would be paid about $5OOO for one kidney. His firm would charge the recipient an additional $5OOO fee for arranging the sale. He claims he has already found 250 Americans who want to sell a kidney, and expects his first transplant operation will be arranged within the next two months.

At present, most kidney transplant operations use organs from brain-dead donors whose hearts are still functioning. Because humans have two kidneys — and can live on a healthy one — a small number of organs are obtained from live donors who are close relatives of the recipients.

From

The development of the drug cyclosporin has reduced the possibility of a transplanted kidney being rejected by the body, and this has significantly increased the success rate of transplants. Dr Jacobs conceived the idea of paying donors after watching a television programme on suffering in Bangladesh. He says he “saw the waste of their organs” and realised that the Third World could become an important source of kidneys for American patients. International Kidney Exchange already has agents in Latin America and Asia who are actively seeking donors. Dr Jacobs stresses that only sales from consenting adults would be handled. “Since many potential donors cannot read, a full explanation is given of the risks involved, and their consent is tape-recorded,”

MARTIN BAILEY,

in London

Dr David Ogden, of the United States National Kidney Foundation, warns that kidney removal should be carefully considered. “Removing a healthy kidney for transplanting is not like popping a pea out of a pod. It is major surgery that carries significant risk of complications,” he says. There are two main risks. First, the initial danger that the removal, performed under a general anaesthetic, might go wrong. Dr Jacobs says the risk of death at this stage is about one in 2000. Second, although a human can live with only one kidney, a greater risk of kidney failure exists with only one organ. Dr Jacobs claims the dangers are small, “equivalent to driving a car eight miles every day.” His

sales literature says: “If the remaining kidney of any donor in our programme fails for any reason, that donor will be given a transplanted kidney free of charge.” Moves are being made in the United States Congress to ban the sale of human organs. Representative Albert Gore of Tennessee said: “We must not allow technology to dehumanise people so that they are regarded as things to be bought and sold like parts of an automobile.”

The United States Surgeon General, Dr Everett Koop, has criticised the kidney sale operation, but it does not contravene present federal regulations. Dr Jacobs, who was jailed for 10 months in 1977 for fraud, dismisses the “Bible belt mentality” which opposes the sale of human organs. — Copyright, London Observer Service.