How myths are born

"I have two children. The wife is unemployed. There is practically nothing to live. There is only one way out - to sell the kidney ..." Almost every report on the trade trading begins with a touching story, where the name driven by life is readiness to part with a particular organ. Naturally, for a tidy amount in dollars. He, as a rule, is extremely not enough about medical and legal aspects of such donation. But the amount - from 40 thousand dollars - calls with such ease that it seems as if he had just returned from the underground dealer, and you can sell the kidney (eyes, light - to choose from) in the nearest gateway. And only after a series of leading questions it turns out: did the price say a friend who he heard, or read it, as they trade in organs. Especially in the West.

With a serious analysis of such stories from the press, it turns out that almost 99 percent of them are “horror stories” that have nothing to do with reality. Not without reason, doctors question the very possibility of criminal transplantation. The transplantation of organs is unpredictable in terms of consequences even in the conditions of official medicine: the risk of rejection always remains, including in cases of related donation. It is unrealistic to carry out such an operation outside the clinic, and behind all the centers of transplantology, as well as for every donor body, severe control has been established. The creation of an underground clinic is not only fraught with criminal prosecution, but is not economically justified. In most countries of the world, the purchase and sale of organs is prohibited by law. Delivery "goods" from abroad is a continuous risk. The body should be taken by highly qualified surgeons, otherwise it can immediately be thrown into the trash. The lifetime of the organ outside the donor is briefly, the conditions are needed as comfortable as possible, and regularly run with such a load across the border - to go bankrupt to customs officers. The combination with the removal of a potential donor is no less complicated: it will have to be fed and maintained until the buyer appears to whom the body is suitable, and the risk of criminal prosecution in case the donor speaks even higher. A possible market for human organs is recognized today by Southeast Asia. But there the level of poverty is much exceeding the Russian one, and looking for a donor on the spot is much more profitable and safer than bringing even from Primorye.

Nevertheless, the myth of the trade in bodies not only lives. It grows and is very successfully operated. About underground clinics, abductions of people for gutting and medical teams that remove the kidneys of the rotozeys right in their bedrooms, hundreds of novels were written and dozens of feature films were shot. Each hint of the possibility of business on the organs is played out in full in the full program not only in boulevard, but also in central newspapers. And human consciousness is a cunning thing. With the greatest hunt, it grabs that part of the information that signals a potential danger. She scares, beckons and fascinates at the same time. But the main thing is that it settles in memory for a long time and in the end grows into the conviction that on every corner it lies in wait for the danger of being disassembled into spare parts. As a result, when the grandmother sold his grandson to the organs in the press, the next bike from the series, the question is who is the customer and where he is, no one is asking. It is much easier to believe in the existence of spaces.

GMC Hears "Organs for Sale" Case - BBC News, 09/22/2000

Police Probe Kidney Racket - BBC News, 05/10/1998

Russian families sell their children to the merchants of human organs - The Sunday Times, 11/26/2000