Sandhya Srinivasan freelance journalist and researcher, Mumbai; consulting editor, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics; consulting editor, public health, Infochange News and Features
Srinivasan S.
Has Tamil Nadu turned the tide on the transplant trade?
BMJ 2013; 346 :f2155
doi:10.1136/bmj.f2155
Re: Has Tamil Nadu turned the tide on the transplant trade?
A booming trade in kidneys in Tamil Nadu is clear from the number of live unrelated transplants that come up for approval before the Authorisation Committee. If in Karnataka there were 1,012 such cases in six years (from January 1996 to March 2002; the list is available with Frontline), in Tamil Nadu the committee, according to Dr. Anil Kumar, gets on an average 800 cases a year. According to him, in 2001, there were 860 cases and 400 were rejected. A reasonable estimate is that some 5,000 cases have come up to the Authorisation Committee in Tamil Nadu since 1995 (when it was set up).
That there is in Chennai a thriving kidney market, with an active doctor-broker-patient nexus, has been brought out time and again in the media and by independent investigators since the Transplantation of Human Organs Act was adopted by the State in 1995, making trade in human organs illegal. (A selection of Frontline's investigative articles on kidney commerce can be read at www.flonnet.com.) Frontline has now in its possession evidence of the trade and of a cover-up in Tamil Nadu by the Authorisation Committee set up under the Act to prevent trade in human organs.
Poverty that kills the poor make them victims of such trade. To save their lives and family many come forward to donate. Brokers and those who treat such patients have a network which is exploiting the donor and the patients who need them. The cadaver donations which seem very rare need to be promoted through education and awareness. Yet as long as poor people are willing to sell their kidneys and the brokers who find a market for them to donate(sell)- this trade will continue (clandestine or open).
Competing interests: No competing interests