What is an Organ Broker?

1690 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Ethics of organ donation

What is an Organ Broker?

A poor man is desperate to make money to feed his family in an undeveloped country. A rich man is sick and needs a kidney transplant in order to survive. He is willing to pay whatever it takes to save his life. A greedy man acts as a middleman, or broker, between the two men and goes home with a profit of thousands of dollars. Organ brokers are most common for organizing kidney transplants and other non-essential organs. However, occasionally organ brokers will bribe the family of a deceased for essential organs such as heart and liver.

The ethical question

Is the broker being benevolent by making a match to save someone’s life, or is the broker disobeying an ethical code by bribing the poor man for his kidney and charging the rich man to save his own life so that the broker profits?

Making a match

For a broker to make any money at all, he must first make a match between a willing donor and a needy, rich recipient. The most common organ brokering is for kidneys. Due to the laws in the United States and other highly developed countries, brokering organs is extremely rare.

Brokers typically seek out the impoverished in undeveloped countries not only for their willingness to do anything for a small sum of money, but also for the lack of legal regulations and enforcement. After a broker has found a willing donor, tests are run to determine the blood type and specific organ characteristics. A broker will then make a list of his potential donors and their test results. Next a needy recipient must be found and matched with an organ on the list. When a match is found, the donor is contacted and brought to the operation location—typically in a host country where the operation can be done “behind closed doors” or without being noticed. In the end, the donor goes home with a small sum of money, the recipient is out hundreds of thousands of dollars and the broker and doctor profit greatly, regardless of the operation being a success or failure.

Dealing with the ethical issues

Under what circumstances do we decide whether it is just to save another human being’s life? Health professionals that question the standards of the brokers fuel the ethical debate.

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Organ Sales Will Save Lives By Joanna Mackay

    323 Words  | 1 Pages

    “Organ Sales Will Save Lives” by Joanna MacKay be an essay that started with a scenario that there are people who died just to buy a kidney, also, thousands of people are dying to sell a kidney. The author stood on her point that governments should therefore stop banning the sale of human organs, she further suggests that it should be regulated. She clearly points that life should be saved and not wasted. Dialysis in no way could possibly heal or make the patient well. Aside from its harshness and being expensive, it could also add stress to the patient. Kidney transplant procedure is the safest way to give hope to this hopelessness. By the improved and reliable machines, transplants can be safe—keeping away from complications. Regulating

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Lisa Belkin's First Do No Harm

    1364 Words  | 3 Pages

    For anyone who has ever worked in healthcare, or simply for someone who has watched a popular hit television show such as Grey’s Anatomy, General Hospital, House or ER know that there can be times when a doctor or health care provider is placed in extremely difficult situations. Often times, those situations are something that we watch from the sidelines and hope for the best in the patient’s interest. However, what happens when you place yourself inside the doctors, nurses, or any other of the medical provider’s shoes? What if you were placed in charge of a patient who had an ethically challenging situation? What you would you do then? That is precisely what Lisa Belkin accomplishes in her book “First Do No Harm”. Belkin takes the reader on

    Read More

  • Anthony Gregory Analysis

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    Yearly, thousands die from not receiving the organs needed to help save their lives; Anthony Gregory raises the question to why organ sales are deemed illegal in his piece “Why legalizing organ sales would help to save lives, end violence”, which was published in The Atlantic in November of 2011. Anthony Gregory has written hundreds of articles for magazines and newspapers, amongst the hundreds of articles is his piece on the selling of organs. Gregory states “Donors of blood, semen, and eggs, and volunteers for medical trials, are often compensated. Why not apply the same principle to organs? (p 451, para 2)”. The preceding quote allows and proposes readers to ponder on the thought of there being an organ

    Read More

  • Transplant Tourism Case Study

    1789 Words  | 4 Pages

    First of all, we can assess issues concerning the donor. For example, is it ever ethically acceptable to weaken one person’s body to benefit another? It has to be said that the practiced procedures are not conducted in the safest of ways, which can lead to complications for both donors and recipients (Delmonico 1416). There are also questions concerning of informed consent: involved donors are not always properly informed about the procedure and are certainly not always competent to the point of fully grasping the situation (Greenberg 240). Moral dilemmas arise for the organ recipient as well. For instance, how is it morally justifiable to seek and purchase organs in foreign countries? Is it morally acceptable to put oneself in a dangerous situation in order to receive a new organ? Some serious safety issues are neglected in such transactions since the procedures sometimes take place in unregulated clinics (Shimazono 959). There is also the concept of right to health involved in this case (Loriggio). Does someone’s right to health have more value than someone else’s? Does having more money than someone else put your rights above theirs? All of these questions have critical consequences when put into the context of transplant tourism and the foreign organ trade. The answers to these questions are all taken into account when answering if it is morally justifiable to purchase

    Read More

  • Richard A. Epstein’s Thinking the Unthinkable: Organ Sales

    1764 Words  | 4 Pages

    Richard A. Epstein’s “Thinking the Unthinkable: Organ Sales” (2005) is an argument trying to convince people that selling human organs is acceptable in order to increase the availability for those in need of an organ transplant. Epstein says money will motivate more people to donate their organs to those in need. He also looks at the argument from the point of the recipient of the organ and argues that the expense of buying an organ will not increase the price of getting an organ transplant.

    Read More

  • Health Care Case Study

    1406 Words  | 3 Pages

    This can be seen in the case study as ethical and legal arise in resuscitation settings, as every situation will have its differences it is essential that the paramedic has knowledge in the areas of health ethics and laws relating to providing health care. The laws can be interpreted differently and direction by state guidelines may be required. Paramedics face ethical decisions that they will be required to interpret themselves and act in a way that they believe is right. Obstacles arise such as families’ wishes for the patients’ outcome, communicating with the key stakeholders is imperative in making informed and good health practice decision. It could be argued that the paramedics in the case study acted in the best interest of the patient as there was no formal directive and they did not have enough information regarding the patients’ wishes in relation to the current situation. More consultation with the key stakeholders may have provided a better approach in reducing the stress and understanding of why the resuscitation was happening. Overall, ethically it could be argued that commencing resuscitation and terminating once appropriate information was available is the right thing to do for the

    Read More

  • Death with Dignity or Sanctity of Life: Who Gets to Choose?

    978 Words  | 2 Pages

    The ongoing controversy about Physician assisted suicides is an ongoing battle among physicians, patients and court systems. The question of whether or not individuals have the “right” to choose death over suffering in their final days or hours of life continues to be contested. On one side you have the physicians and the Hippocratic Oath they took to save lives; on the other you have the patients’ right to make life choices, even if that means to choose death to end suffering. The ultimate question “is it ethical for a physician to agree to assisted suicides and is it ethical for a patient to request assisted suicide?

    Read More

  • Medical Futility: An Increasing Legal, Ethical, and Moral Dilemma

    1919 Words  | 4 Pages

    Mohr, M., & Kettler, D. (1997). Ethical aspects of resuscitation. British Journal of Anaesthesia, 253.

    Read More

  • The Kidney Shortage Problem

    1392 Words  | 3 Pages

    Critics of kidney sales argue that impoverished people are more likely to sell their organs than the rich. (Matas, 2004) They claim that the practice of kidney sales is injustice since vulnerable vendors are targeted and that they may suffer from lengthy health problems after the operations which may eventually lead to the loss of jobs. (Bramstedt, 2010)

    Read More

  • Organ Donation Cause And Effect Essay

    1283 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is clear that a large demand for organs exists. People in need of organ donations are transferred to an orderly list. Ordinarily, U.S. institutions have an unprofitable system which provides organs through a list of individuals with the highest needs; however, these organs may never come. A list is

    Read More

  • Distributive Justice and Organ Transplants

    1173 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout history physicians have faced numerous ethical dilemmas and as medical knowledge and technology have increased so has the number of these dilemmas. Organ transplants are a subject that many individuals do not think about until they or a family member face the possibility of requiring one. Within clinical ethics the subject of organ transplants and the extent to which an individual should go to obtain one remains highly contentious. Should individuals be allowed to advertise or pay for organs? Society today allows those who can afford to pay for services the ability to obtain whatever they need or want while those who cannot afford to pay do without. By allowing individuals to shop for organs the medical profession’s ethical belief in equal medical care for every individual regardless of their ability to pay for the service is severely violated (Caplan, 2004).

    Read More

  • Organ Sale

    1015 Words  | 3 Pages

    The National Organ Transplant act was enacted in 1984 as a free market for organs began to arise in America. Congress was concerned about the injustice that could arise from impoverished donors being pressured into selling their organs (Ci...

    Read More

  • The Crucial Necessity of Organ Donation

    1718 Words  | 4 Pages

    But it exists today: an illegal market in human organs, black markets. Selling a body part seems unethical, but a closer look, reveals no bright line in the laws of most countries. It is legal for men to sell their sperm, for women to sell their limited number of reproductive eggs or use their wombs as surrogate mothers, people who selling their hairs and blood. And it is not understandable and clear why the same standards should not be applied to organs donation such as kidney, part of liver. These organs donation are not riskier than other plain medical surgeries or operations. Research and experience in medicine shows that with one kidney and part of the liver which grow back fast person can live normal healthy life. Many people who might be persuaded that organ donation is safe have another problem: the burden of organ donation fall on those who are already financially disadvantage. Suffering of the poor people would be increased by a market for a human organ is not a trivial one. American law attempts to protect poor people by prohibiting for selling organs. The problem is these attempts hurt poor, donors, human lives. The results of not enough organ donors in United States, combined with the legal sale of organs, there is a black market also. Every year a thousands of people from wealthy countries, including US, travel to poorer, less legally serious countries to buy kidneys

    Read More

  • Organ Donation Shortage

    2036 Words  | 5 Pages

    Despite an increased rate in organ transplantation from living donors, the supply and demand of recipients and donors still has not met. In an effort to further encourage and increase the number of organs available for transplant by living donors, the contemplation of an organ market has been brought up into attention (Tong, 2007). While the idea of an organ market system would theoretically improve the number of living organ ...

    Read More

  • Financial Compensation for Organ Donation

    1323 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the United States, there are over one hundred thousand people on the waiting list to receive a life-saving organ donation, yet only one out of four will ever receive that precious gift (Statistics & Facts, n.d.). The demand for organ donation has consistently exceeded supply, and the gap between the number of recipients on the waiting list and the number of donors has increased by 110% in the last ten years (O'Reilly, 2009). As a result, some propose radical new ideas to meet these demands, including the selling of human organs. Financial compensation for organs, which is illegal in the United States, is considered repugnant to many. The solution to this ethical dilemma isn’t found in a wallet; there are other alternatives available to increase the number of donated organs which would be morally and ethically acceptable.

    Read More

More about What is an Organ Broker?

Open Document