HEALTH:
UN guard against organ trafficking
Thalif Deen
UN, 15/10/2009 , (IPS) - The growth of the transplant market led the United Nations and the Council of Europe to urge State to the study of an international convention governing the donation of human organs and tissues.
Organ trafficking also takes the form called "transplant tourism", performed by patients in the rich North traveling to buy organs taken from men, women and children poor nations of the South where these transactions are not regulated.
The convention is necessary "to prevent trafficking of organs, tissues and cells, protect victims and prosecute offenders," says the document, commissioned four leading experts to the UN and the Council of Europe, a bloc comprised of 47 countries . The study authors distinguished between trafficking in human organs and trafficking in persons for the purpose of removing organs and sell them.
"We hope that this issue is to incorporate the agenda as soon as possible," said UN special advisor on issues gender, Rachel Mayanja, to be consulted about the competence of the UN General Assembly to draft a convention on the subject. "Most victims of trafficking are women and children, who know very little about their rights or about how they are to be respected," said Mayanja, who proposed the study along with Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, deputy secretary- General of the Council of Europe.
The 98-page report entitled "Trafficking in organs and cells and human trafficking for the purpose of removing his organs," says the laws and regulations are essential to the services national organ donation and transplantation to minimize the damage. These rules are needed to protect living donors and those needing transplants, maintaining the principles of societies. The process of donation of human material for transplantation should be defined by law, "the study says.
The report estimates that the traffic matches 5% of kidney transplants performed in the world, and advocates as the basis for all legislation on the prohibition of profit and the promotion of organ donation, with a preference for recently deceased donors. The Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation, created by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health of Spain, estimated that nearly one hundred thousand patients around the world each year receive solid organ transplants, of which 65 000 are the kidneys, livers and 20 000 in 5300 to heart.
But the amount of tissue transplants, including the cornea and heart valve, is much higher, although no official figures. "The shortage of human organs and poverty combine to create the markets," he told reporters one of the study's authors, Arthur Caplan, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania (USA). The report ensures that in some countries of "America and South Asia ", which are not identified, it provides organs from dead donors in exchange for money, the foreigners who need transplants of kidney, liver and heart, among others.
" It is well known example of a Asian country where the organs of executed prisoners are allegedly used for the majority of transplants carried out there, "Caplan adds. This practice should be considered a particular form of trafficking in organs, due to questions that arise about the validity of the consent of the donor to pay death and because many of his organs were transplanted into aliens. When asked about why these countries are not identified in the study, Caplan said he counted only with information obtained through the media. "We try to be fair because the situations are unchanged," he added.
Austrian Prosecutor Carmen Prior, also coauthor of the report, ranked among the major defects of the lack of a normative international definition of trafficking in organs. It remains to design one that is based on three principles: prevention, protection and prosecution, he said. There is no rule of mandatory under the UN to establish the principle of prohibiting the profits from the sale of human bodies or parts, she said. But the World Health Assembly, WHO's governing body, agreed in 1991 a series of "guiding principles on human organ transplants."
These principles include the prohibition of giving and receiving money or any business transaction in the matter, but that restriction does not include spending on the recovery, preservation and dispatch of bodies. They also emphasize the protection of minors and other vulnerable sectors of improper coercion or inducement to donate organs. Although not binding, these principles are widely recognized and are incorporated into many professional and regulatory laws.
The prohibition of profit is also essential to consolidate a system of grants based on the principle of altruism, both living donors as deceased, the study said. Asked about reports according to which human cadavers used in "views of bodies" itinerant didactic come from Chinese prisons, Caplan said that in this field should also be applied the principles valid for organ trafficking. Inter Press
(FIN/2009) http://www.mwglobal.org/ipsbrasil.net/nota.php?idnews=5211
UN guard against organ trafficking
Thalif Deen
UN, 15/10/2009 , (IPS) - The growth of the transplant market led the United Nations and the Council of Europe to urge State to the study of an international convention governing the donation of human organs and tissues.
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The convention is necessary "to prevent trafficking of organs, tissues and cells, protect victims and prosecute offenders," says the document, commissioned four leading experts to the UN and the Council of Europe, a bloc comprised of 47 countries . The study authors distinguished between trafficking in human organs and trafficking in persons for the purpose of removing organs and sell them.
"We hope that this issue is to incorporate the agenda as soon as possible," said UN special advisor on issues gender, Rachel Mayanja, to be consulted about the competence of the UN General Assembly to draft a convention on the subject. "Most victims of trafficking are women and children, who know very little about their rights or about how they are to be respected," said Mayanja, who proposed the study along with Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, deputy secretary- General of the Council of Europe.
The 98-page report entitled "Trafficking in organs and cells and human trafficking for the purpose of removing his organs," says the laws and regulations are essential to the services national organ donation and transplantation to minimize the damage. These rules are needed to protect living donors and those needing transplants, maintaining the principles of societies. The process of donation of human material for transplantation should be defined by law, "the study says.
The report estimates that the traffic matches 5% of kidney transplants performed in the world, and advocates as the basis for all legislation on the prohibition of profit and the promotion of organ donation, with a preference for recently deceased donors. The Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation, created by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health of Spain, estimated that nearly one hundred thousand patients around the world each year receive solid organ transplants, of which 65 000 are the kidneys, livers and 20 000 in 5300 to heart.
But the amount of tissue transplants, including the cornea and heart valve, is much higher, although no official figures. "The shortage of human organs and poverty combine to create the markets," he told reporters one of the study's authors, Arthur Caplan, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania (USA). The report ensures that in some countries of "America and South Asia ", which are not identified, it provides organs from dead donors in exchange for money, the foreigners who need transplants of kidney, liver and heart, among others.
" It is well known example of a Asian country where the organs of executed prisoners are allegedly used for the majority of transplants carried out there, "Caplan adds. This practice should be considered a particular form of trafficking in organs, due to questions that arise about the validity of the consent of the donor to pay death and because many of his organs were transplanted into aliens. When asked about why these countries are not identified in the study, Caplan said he counted only with information obtained through the media. "We try to be fair because the situations are unchanged," he added.
Austrian Prosecutor Carmen Prior, also coauthor of the report, ranked among the major defects of the lack of a normative international definition of trafficking in organs. It remains to design one that is based on three principles: prevention, protection and prosecution, he said. There is no rule of mandatory under the UN to establish the principle of prohibiting the profits from the sale of human bodies or parts, she said. But the World Health Assembly, WHO's governing body, agreed in 1991 a series of "guiding principles on human organ transplants."
These principles include the prohibition of giving and receiving money or any business transaction in the matter, but that restriction does not include spending on the recovery, preservation and dispatch of bodies. They also emphasize the protection of minors and other vulnerable sectors of improper coercion or inducement to donate organs. Although not binding, these principles are widely recognized and are incorporated into many professional and regulatory laws.
The prohibition of profit is also essential to consolidate a system of grants based on the principle of altruism, both living donors as deceased, the study said. Asked about reports according to which human cadavers used in "views of bodies" itinerant didactic come from Chinese prisons, Caplan said that in this field should also be applied the principles valid for organ trafficking. Inter Press
(FIN/2009) http://www.mwglobal.org/ipsbrasil.net/nota.php?idnews=5211
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