GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: Costa Rica becoming hub for global organ trafficking

BioEdge: Costa Rica becoming hub for global organ trafficking

Bioedge

Costa Rica becoming hub for global organ trafficking

by Michael Cook | 30 Sep 2017 | 1 comment

A doctor being arrested in 2013 / The Costa Rica Star

A trial of four doctors and their accomplices in Costa Rica, one of the main countries for international medical tourism, is opening up a window on global organ trafficking.

The cost of a kidney transplant by one of the doctors appears to have been about US$140,000. This had to be split between the doctors, the hospitals, the donors and the brokers.

The business came unstuck in 2012 when Ukrainian police found a Costa Rican phone number among the contacts of two Ukrainian brokers whom they had arrested. When Costa Rican police investigated, they found that some kidneys were being “donated” to rich Israelis. Costa Rican donors were paid about $17,400. They were recruited by other donors who were paid a fee of $1000 for every kidney.

A Greek businessman with a pizza shop across from the Calderon Guardia hospital acted as a middleman between the doctors and the donors. The operations were carried out in two small private hospitals, Clinica Biblica and Clinica Catolica.

Earlier this year human trafficking expert, Luz Estella Ortiz-Nagle, a lawyer from Colombia, told the Costa Rican daily La Nación:

“Costa Rica may be transforming from a tiny player in the global organ trafficking trade into an epicenter for illegal organ trafficking, in large part due to corruption that has helped fuel a sophisticated transplant tourism industry as well as the global imbalance between the limited supply of kidneys and the high demand for transplants…Corrupt officials in various sectors is an essential aspect for these networks to operate successfully, given the breadth of their operations.”

Most of us have an ambivalent attitude towards drug addicts. Can they stop? No, their will power is shot to pieces. Will you invite one home to dinner? No, he’s a drug addict. However inconsistent it might be, we manage to dismiss addiction as morally serious and stigmatize them at the same time.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court is due to hear a case on drug addiction which could have wide-ranging consequences. Julie Eldred, an addict, relapsed while on parole and was jailed. (See story below.) But jailing her was wrong, according to the Massachusetts Medical Society, because opioid use is a chronic illness, not a character defect.

The opposite point of view is represented by 11 addiction experts in an amicus curiae brief. They argue that “Most addicts quit and do so on their own. Addiction seems to be among the most spontaneously ‘remitting’ of all the conditions termed major mental disorders, which is a very inconvenient fact for the position that addiction is a ‘chronic and relapsing brain disease.’”

The outcome of the argument will have immense legal and social consequences. If the addict is helpless in the grip of his or her disease, punishment makes no sense. The whole criminal law would change. To be continued....