LONDON, July 13 (UPI) -- Physicians used this week's British Medical Journal (BMJ) to mull the idea of a regulated international exchange for donor kidneys.
The original article by Dundee University Medical School's Sue Rabbitt Roff argued that the sale of body parts and fluids is already legal and monetary values are assigned to different organs and limbs in compensation scales for workers' accidents, criminal injuries, or injuries received during military service.
She said that creating a regulated exchange system would undercut the existing illegal trade that risks sellers' lives. Roff quoted a recommended value of U.S. $40,000 for a kidney, and said that this sum accompanied by the highest level of clinical care would be fair and no more reprehensible than the currently permitted vending of other body materials.
Her view was seconded by two Indian physicians who thought regulated sale would make more kidneys available for transplantation and reduce dangerous black market ventures.
But a heart specialist responded that, while fixed compensation for a price set by experts might increase the organ supply, it was unlikely to stop illegal activity because cut-rate operators could probably get "vendors" to sell their organs for less and this would create a pipeline of organs that woudl run principally from the poor to the rich.
All the letters are on view in the birtish Medical Journal at 333:51 and 149.
