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By Jack Hill

Photo Courtesy of Cedars Sinai

Today, 17 people in the United States will die from organ failure, and despite organ donation reaching an all-time high in 2021, there are still over 100,000 patients awaiting an organ transplant. An exponential increase in demand and an inadequate supply of organs has led to the creation of a black market for organs. Under the National Organ Transplant Act, selling organs is illegal in the United States, but the financial incentive to sell organs entices people to sell their organs illegally, and while money may motivate more people to donate, there are many ethical concerns over legalizing an organ market. 

Organ donation is the process of surgically removing an organ from either a living or deceased donor, and then transporting that organ to a transplant hospital, where a recipient will undergo surgery to receive the organ. Last year in the United States, there were more than 40,000 lifesaving transplants that took place. The most commonly transplanted organs are kidneys, livers, pancreases, hearts, lungs, and intestines.

Organ failure is deadly. More than 8,000 people die every year from organ failure. Depending on the organ, a patient could die within hours of organ failure. Those who live through initial organ failure become a candidate for organ donation and join a long waitlist of patients who also need new organs in order to live. Being chosen to receive an organ is a complicated process, and once a candidate is chosen, surgery must happen almost immediately for the best results. In order to select a candidate, all transplant candidates on the waiting list that are incompatible with the donor because of blood type, height, weight, and other medical factors are automatically screened out. Proper organ size is also critical to a successful transplant. For instance, children often respond better to child-sized organs. Although pediatric candidates have their own unique scoring system, children are typically first in line for other children’s organs due to the size factor. The geographic location must also be taken into consideration. Hearts and lungs must be transplanted quicker, since they can only be maintained for a certain amount of time before dying, so the physical distance from the donor to the recipient is crucial.

The organ black market inflates the price of buying an organ up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, but those with the financial means will do anything to acquire the organs that they need. During a sting operation in 2009, the FBI arrested a man, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, for buying kidneys and reselling them to those in need for more than $160,000 dollars. Rosenbaum’s case is unfortunately one of many as the organ black market increases in size. 

The practice of selling organs is illegal in nearly every country in the world for good reason: it’s unethical. Allowing those with the financial means to simply purchase organs for a higher price instead of waiting on the list to receive donations is egregious. This would provide more affluent people an unequal opportunity to receive organs before those who cannot afford to buy organs. 

The only way to fix the organ shortage is to increase the number of organ donors. However, doing so is no easy task. Only 58% of the United States population is signed up to donate organs. Many people don’t trust doctors and feel that donating organs is unsafe. The organ crisis, however, is not just a result of a lack of donors. Not only is the amount of organs available an issue, but in order to receive an organ, a patient needs to match with the organ that they are receiving, which limits the number of transplants that can take place. These two factors alone deny an overwhelming amount of patients in need of a transplant a chance to get one.

Legalizing the sale of organs by non-certified organizations and doctors could have many consequences. Apart from creating unequal opportunity by increasing access to organs for the wealthy, legalizing sales may lead to deadly complications. Gross negligence in order to extract organs from both living and deceased people could lead to complications and even deaths during surgery. Opening a market to sell organs for donation may lead to extreme malpractice and hasty decisions to donate organs, without understanding the possible risks associated with donating.

Image courtesy of iStock.

The average life expectancy of someone who has received an organ donation of any kind is less than ten years. At our current rate, the number of patients who need an organ transplant could surpass the one million mark within the decade. However, legalizing an open market for organ selling is not the answer. One can only hope that new technology and an influx of generosity will soon come and provide organs to those who need them.

Featured image courtesy of Cedars Sinai.