Kidneys For Sale...On Net

Patients Risk Lives In Multi-Million-Pound Illegal Trade

By Stephen Hayward And Terry O'Hanlon

February 22, 2005

The illegal trade in human kidneys has become a multi-million industry, with desperate British patients risking their lives trying to find donors on the internet.

A Sunday Mirror investigation has uncovered websites offering kidneys for sale at up to £100,000 a time - and one that even pretended to represent the bona fide British Kidney Patient Association (BKPA).

Full of messages from people willing to become illicit donors, it has now been closed after our investigators informed the real BKPA of its existence.

But without proper regulation of the internet, donors simply use other internet message boards, such as the Diabetes Daily News.

The Sunday Mirror placed a message on its website - posing as a patient desperate to find a kidney donor - and we were soon inundated with offers.

They came flooding in from countries as far afield as Singapore, Pakistan and America.

One Serbian said he was willing to undergo surgery because he was poor and he wanted to care for his family.

Another reply, from "Alfonso", said he was healthy, fit and willing to have a kidney removed for £30,000.

An American woman said she needed £19,000-worth of dental work and would lose a kidney to pay for it. Another said she would do the same to fund urgent gastric bypass surgery.

Scott Reynolds, a 27-year-old Suffolk electrician looking for £100,000, also advertised his services on the site.

Reynolds, who is now being investigated by Suffolk police, wrote: "I got a spare kidney. Yours for the right price. Make me an offer. I am B+ and I am in the UK."

When contacted again, he said initially he wanted "a couple of years' wages" or £50,000. But he later upped that to £100,000, claiming he had other desperate potential buyers from the US and London.

He said he knew it was illegal in the UK, but added: "I'd feel much better talking about the money after we have had the test to see if we are compatible.

"But I would have said £100,000 ideally, so then I can start my own business. Although I am an electrician, I would like to do other things, so £100,000 would be very good.

"I would like half before the operation and half afterwards. That way everyone gets what they want."

Reynolds, of Great Cornard, said he was prepared to arrange an operation outside Britain to escape the strict regulations banning the surgery here.

But he denied he was cynically exploiting the sick.

"Well, it's not as if I am damaging someone," he said. "It's what someone wants, if they are willing to pay for it.

"It's not as if I am stealing something. It's my body."

Last night, a Suffolk police spokesman said: "We can confirm that we are investigating a reported attempt by a local man to sell one of his kidneys for £100,000 contrary to the Human Organs Transplant Act, 1989."

Around 7,000 NHS patients are waiting for kidney transplants. However, a lack of organs meant just 3,000 had an operation last year.

Most donor kidneys are taken from people killed in accidents. About 10 per cent of kidney transplants use organs from living donors - often close relatives and friends.

John Evans, chairman of the British Organ Donor Society (BODS), a support group for donor families, said: "There is a good deal of evidence that many people die because their kidneys are unsuitable.

"By and large, live donors should be fighting fit and healthy. But in many cases they are completely unsuitable for donations.

"This is the short fuse to oblivion. Within a few years many are worse off than if they had not had the transplant.

"The motivation is money, not the health and quality of life that the recipient can expect." The BKPA, one of Britain's leading transplant charities, offers plenty of advice about the best steps to take. It was dismayed that organ-sellers had set up a website under its name.

An official of the Hampshire-based BKPA told us: "We were horrified when we discovered that our website had effectively been hijacked by these people.

"A lot of patients who have been on dialysis for many years have made their views clear on the rogue website by calling them, among other things, leeches.

"One can understand starving people in the Third World seeing this as a way out of poverty, but you cannot understand the mentality of people in the West who are offering to do it because they want to set up a business or have dentistry. It is scandalous."

Mr Evans, who founded BODS, added, "It's good news that this abhorrent fake site has been taken down. The practice is reprehensible.

"Unfortunately, the internet is a breeding ground for people trying to make money out of people's misery. Patients should not be tempted to act on these offers, they would be putting their lives on the line.

"No self-respecting surgeon would be part of such activities and only those interested in money would be taking part. People should listen to the advice of their hospital and doctor."

Our investigation comes as Warwickshire doctor Jarnail Singh - who was suspended for six months for advising a patient that a kidney donor could be paid - was told he could go back to work.

The General Medical Council ruled on Friday that Dr Singh should be allowed to resume work when his suspension expires on May 12.

After Singh was suspended, kidney specialists called for a debate on the sale of human organs for transplant.

Professor Graeme Catto, dean of the medical school at King's College London, said: "Although it is illegal and distasteful, it is happening."

A Department of Health spokesman yesterday said it had decided after a review that commercial transactions for organ transplants should remain banned.

The ban was introduced in 1989 after it was revealed that private doctors in London were using organs from paid Turkish donors.

Those who sell them can be fined up to £5,000 or imprisoned for three months if caught in Britain.

Last night Tory health spokesman Dr Liam Fox said: "It is vital that every possible measure should be in place to maximise the donation of kidneys and other organs.

"But this must only be done with the full and proper consent of donors - not via some dubious route which exploits the donor in any way."

Copyright © 2005 The Sunday Mirror.

This article posted April 9, 2005.