Stolen Organs: Not Just the Stuff of Urban Legends?

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We've heard the story, and seen the TV shows that tell us it is just an urban legend: A man is lured to a hotel room by a beautiful woman, passes out, and wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, missing a kidney or other organ. While it is a fictional story here in the U.S., it may not be so fictional in other parts of the world.

Three years ago, Sayyed Mahmoud Abou Dief was an unemployed worker in Egypt. He was excited to be offered a job in Libya, and readily agreed to go in for a health screening as a part of the hiring process. He claims he was sedated and when he woke up hours later, his right kidney had been removed. As he told his story to a reporter from Reuters, he lifted his shirt to reveal the scar he offers as proof. For his trouble, he was paid the equivalent of about $700 (U.S.).

While the details of Dief's case are extraordinary, the international trafficking of human body parts appears to be more than an urban legend, mostly due to a high demand and lax government oversight in a lot of countries.

China, Pakistan, and Egypt are hotbeds of human organ trafficking. In these countries, there are few legal protections against buying and selling organs, and in China specifically, they experience significant shortages of available organs compared to the lists of people awaiting transplant. Often, people agree to sell their organs voluntarily, unlike Sayyed Dief.

In other cases, patients who are denied treatment - often do to medical regulations or shortages of available donors - are going to these organ trafficking countries to pay for what they can't receive at home. Kidneys and livers are the most sought after organs.

The economic disparity among rich "transplant tourists" and the possible donors in poor countries makes an offer of even a few hundred dollars very difficult to pass up. Men in Turkey who are struggling to earn enough to feed and house their family have resorted to posting on-line advertisements in an effort to find someone willing to pay for an organ. Unfortunately, the donors in many of these cases are often left with no medical care once the organ is obtained.

Organs from prisoners or patients who are nearing the end of life - but haven't quite made it there, by western standards - are also up for grabs, with hospital, government, or quasi-government agencies benefiting from the sale. There is an international movement to regulate the sale of organs, but with so many different cultures, governments, and attitudes about the sanctity of life, it seems a monumental task.