India's Black Market Racket in Human Kidneys

Guna Ponraj, 38, sold his kidney a year ago to stave off a mounting debt, and was eventually swindled.

Doctors say the government should do more to encourage legitimate organ donations to counter the illicit trade. Sunil Shroff, a well-known renal transplant surgeon in Chennai, says that "if the government is keen on ending the kidney trade, it should encourage cadaver-based transplants in a big way." A cadaver-based program, some doctors say, can probably reduce the trade in organs, though it's not as good as a relative's donation in the case of the kidney.

A cadaver transplant program can benefit only the financially well-off patients because of the requirement for costly immunosuppressant drugs for life. "What is needed is a regulated system for legal live related organ donation" to protect the interests of both donors and recipients, says R. Ravichandran, the director of the Madras Institute of Nephrology.

Although kidney trade is banned in most countries, including the United States, the Brussels-based International Society of Nephrology has suggested expanding the pool of kidney donors by legalizing payment of about $40,000 to donors. "The choice before us is not between buying or not buying organs," says Ravichandran. "This is happening regardless of the law. The choice is whether transplant operations and the sale of organs will be regulated or not."