If one morning you woke up with the intention of shedding everything that was useless or redundant in your body, you would discover that a simple piece of liver is already enough to live, with a quarter of the kidney the excretory tasks can already be carried out . Or a kidney. The endless length of the intestines could be shortened to a meter or two, no more. One eye and one ear is enough. You can even live perfectly without many pieces of the brain.
In times of financial crisis, why not sell everything unnecessary? People sell gold and even an old DVD player, why not a part of us?
The price of our organs
Let us assume that the sale of organs is illegal and dangerous . But how much could we get? According to the WHO , in India, a kidney is valued at around $ 20,000. In China, they can exceed 40,000. A healthy kidney in Israel can cost up to $ 160,000. However, it is raw money: the intermediary deducts his commission, he has to pay for the trip, the surgeon, the medical supplies … so some people get between 1,000 and 10,000 dollars for their kidney. On eBay, before a kidney was delisted, bids reached as high as $ 5.75 million.
Below is a price list prepared with data from the UN and Human Rights Watch from Asia that governs the world market for organs:
Kidney: $ 120,000.
Liver: $ 150,000.
Cornea: 45 thousand dollars.
Lung: 150 thousand dollars.
Heart: $ 60,000.
Pancreas: $ 120,000.
Spinal cord: 60 thousand euros.
In the United States, financial compensation for organ donation was raised: the 2009 law prohibiting organ trafficking would have allowed payment to donors, but it was rejected in Congress.