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Everything in the world comes with a price tag attached. Anyone with the right amount of money can have his way and pay for things we might not even realise are for sale. At best, all of us realise that there is a market for kidneys to be used for transplants and we brush it aside as something that is important for someone to be able to lead a normal life again. But truth be told, this could not be farther from the truth. The person who receives the kidney only has a fleeting chance of normal life, that is, if you consider a life of dependency on anti-rejection drugs normal. And the donor, an euphemism for the person who comes from a background of abject poverty and was more or less persuaded by the lure of money, may not ever be able to go back to earning what little he managed to before he sold off his kidney. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Carney takes us on a journey to uncover the number of ways in which a human body can be used to garner some profit — dead or alive. He tells us of a time when 90 per cent of the skeletons used for education around the world came from India. It has since been outlawed but is still a flourishing trade. Bones from corpses find use as educational aids, the tibias are used to make flutes and the skulls make brainpans for Bhutanese Buddhist monks. With nothing to deter the grave robbers, business for them is booming. He goes on to say that everything, including the liver, blood, kidneys, muscles, hair, eggs and even children, is sold. And since the governments of most countries forbid them from being sold in a regulated manner, they are sold via body brokers whose sole purpose is profit and they stop at nothing to get their share of the pie. How is it deemed ethical to remove an organ from a live donor to use it for another patient who may not even benefit from it? Also, all tissue migrates only upwards and never downwards implying it is deemed a commodity that is at the disposal of a select few who can afford it. It can be called anything but donation. The governments of all countries prohibit disclosure of the identity of the donor and forbid them from receiving a payment legally. In the name of privacy and altruism, it is always those at the lowest rungs of this chain who stand to lose proper payment and also the benefit of medical treatment. On the other hand, transparency brings with it a host of other problems. To circumvent these problems, certain countries started transplants using prisoners who would be catalogued and executed when a match required their organs. He cites the example of the Falun Gong practitioners who were similarly used for harvesting organs. Women are routinely pumped with obscene amount of hormones to procure bigger batches of eggs that can be divided into many recipients. Advertising for eggs is eerily similar to the matrimonial ads in India; complete with skin, eye and hair colour, weight, height, ethnicity, education et al. Surrogacy is legal in just a handful of countries and they also don’t necessarily recognise it as a form of employment. It raises certain questions regarding the fundamental rights of the women who offer their wombs to childless couples and are forced to undergo C-sections after being cloistered for the duration of their pregnancy. They are implanted with multiple foetuses to improve their chances of pregnancy, but it can have serious health complications. People also offer themselves as guinea pigs for clinical trials of new drugs for the easy cash it brings, but even that can have serious implications. Carney offers his personal experiences as part of his clinical trials. It is interesting and frightening at the same time when you realise how deep the red market is and how wide it has spread its web. Drugs are being tested on patients in developing countries without bothering to inform them that they are test subjects in a study concerning unauthorised drugs that could have harmful effects. The irony of the situation is that should they stand to benefit from that very same drug after it has been approved, they are unlikely to be able to afford it. So long as doctors put patients on lists that ensure them a better life via an organ transplant, their demand is unlikely to go down and the red markets will continue to prosper. The book is very thought provoking and introduces the reader to the bustling market for human bodies where every part can be procured for a price. The author has an uncanny gift of being an investigative journalist and a seasoned writer at the same time. The book is easy enough to read for someone who has never ventured beyond a romantic comedy. At the same time it drives home the seriousness of the tissue trade and its ruthless brokers.
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Scott Carney’s book The
Red Market is an eye-opener. He is an investigative journalist whose
reports have appeared in NPR, CBC, BBC, and National Geographic TV, and
in Mother Jones, Fast Company, Discover and Foreign Policy. He lives in
Long Beach, California, and has a decade of experience living and
researching in India. He gives us a peek inside the little-known world
of tissue brokers.