Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Organ Gangs Force Poor to Sell Kidneys for Desperate Israelis

Click here to access article by Michael Smith, Daryna Krasnolutska and David Glovin from Bloomberg Markets Magazine. 
Investigators on five continents say they have uncovered intertwining criminal rings run by Israelis and eastern Europeans that move people across borders -- sometimes against their will -- to sell a kidney.

“The criminal here is the middleman who profits from the sick and the poor,” says Bahat, who investigated an organ- trafficking ring in Jerusalem. “It touches my heart that people will sell part of their body because they need money to live.”
This organ market is another result of a capitalist system that creates huge gaps between rich and poor, that converts everything into a commodity to be bought, sold, rented, or otherwise exploited to enrich the lives of the already rich. For an excellent dramatization of this practice, I recommend you see the film entitled, "Dirty Pretty Things".