3RD WORLD TRAFFIC

I got in my car and switched on the radio as I always do when driving back home from the gym. As usual, Larry Mantel was on, and his guest was Scott Carney. I’d never heard his name before but you can be sure my ears perked up when he said, ‘…organ trafficking.’

Scott Carney is a contributing editor for Wired magazine and an investigative reporter who used to live in India. He became interest in organ trafficking after a friend of his died there. The vultures immediately began to circle (not literally). Before his friend was dead, organ brokers came out of the woodwork, asking Scott what he intended to do with his friend’s body parts.

India is a growing economy, but there are still plenty of Third World characteristic in the way the country functions. One of these is a lack of basic, essential, well-organized, regulatory mechanisms i.e. laws on the books that are actually enforced. In this case (and countless others), it means supervised and controlled organ donation, retrieval and transfer laws. According to Carney, ever since organ transplants have become commonplace, life expectancy has risen around the world by thirty years. The problem is the means by which this life expectancy has been attained.

China is pretty much in the same boat when it comes to organ trafficking, but India seems to have the most blatant problem. On one hand, consider the 25 billionaires who have emerged from India’s steadily growing economy. On the other hand, consider over 51% of the Indian population don’t have a toilet. It would be presumptuous of me to say “don’t have a toilet in their home” because stacked cardboard boxes hardly qualify as a ‘home.’ 51% of India’s population means twice the population of the United States uses a toilet outside of their dwelling or, a plastic bags...if it’s available. Add lack of social standards, rampant corruption and mismanaged, inefficient bureaucracy to this equation and you have a recipe for exploitation.

I can tell you in all certainty that the 25 billionaires don’t become targets of organ trade rings. However I’m not so sure about the five hundred million who don’t have toilets. Everybody from broker, to doctor, authorities, hospital and donor are in on the scam. Scott Carney went on to mention a group of eighty women post tsunami so desperate to feed their family they sold their kidney for less than $2,000. When you don’t have a toilet, it sounds like a lot of money. But it isn’t. It was quickly spent, and the families ended up in even worse situations than before (is that even possible?), especially in those much too often cases where the organ retrieval hadn’t been done properly.

Speaking of retrieving an organ properly…most recently, a seventeen-year-old boy in China really wanted an iPad 2. So much so that he was willing to do anything to get one, even sell his kidney. And it was much too easy for him to do this. A broker contacted the teen on the Internet. The teen ended up following the broker’s instructions, and going to hospital #198 in Chenzhou without notifying his parents, and having his kidney removed.

This story is disturbing on so many levels. It turns out, hospital #198 wasn’t qualified to perform such a surgery. You’d ask yourself, why would they accept to do the job? As a result, the boy is having serious health complications due to…a poorly retrieved organ. China, the up and coming economy just like India, has plenty of corruption to go around. No matter how illegal, everyone is a willing participant if it means a payday. Organ trafficking has become a very lucrative way to compensate for low paying jobs, joblessness and poverty.

Now about the boy; this is an example of the increasing consumerism among Chinese youth. There’s a strong likelihood peer pressure from friends or classmates pushed the teen to these extreme measures. Perhaps he wanted to fit in. Or he fell pray to the ‘keeping up with the Jones’ mentality now rampant in the newly materialistic China. The boy received $3,400 for his organ, got an iPad 2, but might die because no one ever stopped him along the way.

No system is perfect. Here in the United States, some doctors have slipped through the cracks. In 2005, St. Vincent hospital in Los Angeles had to shut down the liver transplant department. Doctors gave a Saudi national who was #52 on the list, a liver that was meant for a near-death person. He ended up passing away. While it’s sad such an unethical decision was made, it’s also true that the checks and balances worked. A thorough investigation shed light on the fraud. Dr. Lopez, head of the transplant department, had to resign.

What is the conclusion if you live in India or China and need an organ? Best case scenario is that you’re somehow related to one of the 25 billionaires. Short of that, you’re pretty much on your own. 

EIGHT FOR EIGHT

What a wonderful article in the New York Times, this past Tuesday, May 17.  The Science Times section brought a story about Julio and Mirtala Garcia. The couple, naturalized Americans originally from Guatemala, saved the lives of seven people and restored the vision of an eighth. Theoretically speaking, instead of 110,000 people waiting for organs in the United States, there are now 103,000.

Mr. Garcia was at his plumbing job one day, when he felt ill. He was suffering from one of his much too frequent migraine headaches. This one was different than the others, because besides being in terrible pain, he also felt numb all over. He called his wife and asked her to come pick him up. Mrs. Garcia wanted to call an ambulance. Her husband, Julio, thought it unnecessary. They drove to the hospital where doctors diagnosed Julio with massive brain hemorrhaging. They were able to stabilize him; then they had him transported to another hospital better equipped to deal with his problem. By the time the ambulance dropped him off at the new facility, he was in a coma. A few hours later, and several attempts to drain the blood from his brain, he was declared brain dead. After the obligatory verification from two independent doctors, Mirtala was given the news. In this profound moment of grief, a hospital official asked her if she would donate his organs.

At first Mirtala hoped Julio would awake. But the doctor explained that this wasn’t possible because, essentially, he had already passed away. Machines were keeping his organs oxygenated. The next day, once again, she was asked if she would donate his organs. Julio had been a deeply religious man. He was the pastor at his church. Mirtala thought of her two friends from church suffering from kidney failure, and whose time was running out.

And she thought about the comments her husband had made after watching the movie Seven Pounds, starring Will Smith and Rosario Dawson. In the movie, Will Smith plays a man (Ben Thomas) filled with remorse for what he had done. He drove and was on his cell phone when he caused an accident that killed six people in a van and his passenger. Ben decides to ‘give back’ by donating his organs and thus saving seven people, the same number of lives he had taken. Personally, I don’t go for movies full of transplant flaws. You can’t transplant eyes (only cornea), and you can’t take organs from a dead man, even if he’s lying in a tub of ice water, waiting for his pet jellyfish to sting him (Helloooo!!). I don’t know how many times Hollywood has gotten this wrong, and will continue to do so as long as it makes for good drama, and, more importantly, good box office (the movie made 168 million worldwide. It cost 55 million to make. In Hollywood terms, including P&A coast, I’d say it barely broke even.) But I digress.

After seeing this movie, Julio had told his wife that he’d be happy to give life after his death. He said that if anyone got his heart, she should meet the recipient. Recalling that conversation, Mirtala knew she had to donate Julio’s organs. The article went on to say that she met five of the seven recipients: the heart, lung, two kidney and adult partial liver recipients. One, the pancreas recipient, chose to remain anonymous, the other, a one-year-old baby who received a portion of Julio’s liver, well, it’s pretty obvious. The cornea recipient was never at death’s doorstep and doesn’t count among the 103,000 remaining on the organ transplant waiting list.

The five recipients and Mirtala met at the New York headquarters of the liver distribution center. Such a gathering had never happened before. Perhaps one donor a year gets to meet his/her recipient. For five of them to come together with their single donor is highly unusual, as is one donor giving seven of his organs.  

I found this story quite touching for several reasons. A Guatemalan man who could barely speak English (Mirtala spoke through a translator) donated his organs to save American lives. This alone is praiseworthy. As much as we would like to think of ourselves as ‘color blind,’ there’s still plenty of racism in the United States. Does race affect organ donation? This is a question I can’t answer, but it is something to think about.

If all donors gave up to seven organs, perhaps the list would shrink a little. Why the average organ donation is only three I don’t know, but it’s something to think about.

I commend Mirtala Garcia for quickly deciding to donate. Her husband passed on Thursday, by Friday she had made up her mind. When you’ve just lost your loved one, it can’t be easy to think rationally. Time is of the essence when it comes to donors and recipients.

Let me end this story the way I began it. For a moment, there were 103,000 people on the waiting list thanks to Julio and Mirtala Garcia. By the time I finish this post, or probably even before, the number will have jumped right back where it was to 110,000. I wish no one the tragedy Mirtala and thousands of others experience when a loved one passes of brain death. Optimist that I am, the upside of such a death is giving life to others. We recipients welcome many, many more Mirtala Garcias. 

CHRISTINA GREEN

What can you say about a little girl born on the most tragic day this country has ever known and killed on an equally tragic day? Christina Green, who left the security of her mother’s womb on September 11^th, 2001, the day the twin towers of Manhattan collapsed, has done plenty in her short life.

I know practically nothing about this little girl. I don’t know if she took ballet lessons or who her best friend was, or what her favorite color was. Did she like to sing? Did she play with dolls or was she a tomboy?

What I do know is that she was interested in her civil duty, and the meaning of democracy. She had just been elected into her student council at her school. This new awareness prompted her to delve deeper into the political process and take the opportunity to visit with a politician. These actions tell me how bright she was. Yes, she was a bright little girl; she was giving and loving as well. Christina’s family has donated her organs to several people, because “it would have been what she wanted,” her father said. Among the recipients is a little girl from Boston.

cgreen-portrait-articleInline.jpg
And now the point of my blog. Just like little Christina, none of us are masters of our fate. We come into this world confident of leading a long and fruitful life. No matter how young or old we are when the time comes to meet our maker, we can give back that which was given to us: LIFE.

Following talk-show host David Letterman’s example here are the ten top reasons why you should become an organ donor.

#10 – For those of you who think “six feet under” is all fine and well but prefer to be transferred into another body, this is your chance.

#9 – A legacy that will always be held in the highest of regards is that of an organ donor.    

#8 – If ever you need an organ you’ll be thankful that someone thought of you, just as you have thought of others.

#7 – Donating your organs is like AIG (yes, the corporation that is too big to fail). You only have to keep that promise at a point in time when you won’t remember you have even made it.

#6 – You can always tell an organ donor: it’s the person who avoids taking risks.

#5 – Few of us will do great things in our lives, at least that others will know of. Donating an organ will make you very popular among all those whom you have helped.

#4 – Donating an organ means you are healthy. Hospitals will not take organs from sick people.

#3 – You will never feel guilty again for passing a person pan-handling and not giving him or her money. By becoming an organ donor you can always tell yourself you’re doing something much greater.    

#2 – If ever you donate your organs, it will be when you won’t need them anymore.

#1 – There is no higher form of generosity and giving than being an organ donor. By placing that little sticker on your driver’s license, you join the group of people spreading a message of love, hope and continuity.

Dear Christina, it broke my heart and the heart of the nation, that this senseless tragedy befell you and the other victims. But out of this dark and painful experience, you shine brighter than ever. Currently more than 100,000 people are waiting for organs. 8000 donors saved a little under 22,000 lives last year. 18 people die daily in the United States because they cannot get an organ on time. 

You, Christina, are my hero for keeping one little girl in Boston off the deceased list. Even though I have never met you, you and I are connected. You passed away before you had a chance to live your life, and I was just a few years older than you when I began my descent into illness. In saving the little girl in Boston, you have saved me, because people as generous as you have given me their organs. You are bigger than life Christina, bigger than my life will ever be from where I stand, on the receiving end. I am truly humbled.