Wednesday
August 15, 2012
August 15, 2012
By MWAURA SAMORA msamora@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Monday, August 13 2012 at 19:30
Posted Monday, August 13 2012 at 19:30
In Summary
- How much is your body worth? The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has unearthed the gory details of the lucrative body organs market, where everything, from the cornea in your eye to the bones in your feet and everything in between, is a cash cow for organ gangsters. Cadavers are no longer safe in morgues, and there is every indication that the growing problem of human trafficking could have tentacular links to this macabre business
More than 20,000 people, mostly minors, are
trafficked out of or through Kenya to Asia, Europe and other African
countries annually, according to the International Organisation for
Migration (IOM). And although most studies report that those 20,000 men
and women are herded into forced labour and sex camps, chances are that
some of them end up in the hands of illicit human organ trade cartels in
the West.
A recent series of reports by the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which
investigated this illicit trade in eight months and across 11 countries,
reveals that the business of harvesting bones, corneas, heart valves,
skin and other body parts from cadavers to make medical products is
thriving in the world.
The report, for instance,
revealed that cadaver bone, harvested from the dead and replaced with
PVC piping for burial, is sculpted like pieces of hardwood into screws
and anchors for dozens of orthopaedic and dental applications.
In other instances, the bone is
ground and mixed with chemicals to produce strong surgical glues — used
to attach organs and tissues after surgery — that is said to be better
than artificial varieties, while tendons are used to treat injured
athletes.
Weighing between three to four
kilogrammes for an average adult, human skin is one of the most
sought-after organs since it has a variety of uses.
“Human skin takes the colour of
smoked salmon when it is professionally removed in rectangular shapes
from a cadaver,” the ICIJ report says.
“After being mashed up to remove
moisture, some is destined to protect burn victims from life-threatening
bacterial infections or, once refined, for breast reconstructions after
cancer.”
Other common uses of dead
peoples’ body parts include phallus enlargement, breast reconstruction
after cancer, smoothing wrinkled faces, cornea transplants, heart valve
replacements, bladder slings for incontinence, and bone grafts, among
many others.
“In Kenya, the most commonly
harvested cadaver parts are corneas, which are used in reconstructive
eye surgery,” says Dr Eric Walong, a pathologist based at the University
of Nairobi. “These are mostly donations that happen with the consent of
the dead person’s family, and there is usually no monetary gain on
either side of the deal.”
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Kenya does not have a defined and cultured
organ industry, partly because there are no efficient and reliable
emergency services to preserve the bodies and organs in good shape
awaiting surgical removal, and partly because cultural beliefs
discourage organ harvesting.
But that is not to say that we
have been spared the ravages of this multi-billion-shilling industry.
Chances are that, as families mourn the loss of loved ones, somebody
somewhere is celebrating all the way to the bank.
In fact, the report notes, while
most European cadavers are from people who died in hospitals, people
trafficked from other parts of the world, like Africa, might be killed
to obtain vital organs and tissues since the demand is on the rise.
That rise in demand has
translated into a rise in earnings per harvested cadaver. Ordinary
“hustlers” wheeler-dealing with morgues in the United States can make up
to $10,000 (Sh82,000) per corpse, and RTI Biologics, a tissue and organ
selling multi-national, is said to have raked in $169 million (Sh13.8
billion) in 2011 from harvesting body organs from dead persons.
A fully processed disease-free
body, with all the organs recovered and applied to the various end uses,
can generate between $80,000 (Sh6.56 million) and $200,000 (Sh16.4
million).
A case in point on how global
organ trade has become a “blood goldmine” in the last few years is that
of Phillip Joe Guyett, arguably America’s largest freelance organ
harvester ever nabbed.
Bragging of how senior executives
from multi-national tissue companies treated him to $400 (Sh32,000)
meals and five star hotel stays in order to clinch his services, Guyett
writes in his peculiarly named memoirs, Heads, Shoulder, Knees and
Bones, of how he started seeing the dead “with dollar signs attached to
their body parts”.
The party for him, however, ended
in 2006, when he was handed a “prolonged jail term” for falsifying
death records of his “victims”.
Most of this multi-million dollar
“blood gold” empire has been going on for years without the knowledge
of the victims’ relatives, most of whom just pick the bodies of their
loved ones from the morgues and head straight to the cemetery without
minding to check the cadaver’s conditions.
One of those families would have been that of
Lubov Frolova, a Ukranian woman whose son’s organs and tissues were
harvested. “On the way to the cemetery in the hearse, one of the shoes
slipped off (my son’s) foot,” she told the ICIJ. “(The foot) seemed to
be hanging loose. When my daughter-in-law touched it, she said it (felt)
empty inside.”
Police investigations revealed
that two ribs, two Achilles tendons, two elbows, two eardrums and two
teeth were among the organs missing in the body.
Frolova’s eerie discovery,
coupled with tens of other incidences, led to the uncovering of a huge
syndicate of illicit organ trade involving Ukrainian morgues and US
human tissue multi-nationals.
This has led to an outcry in the
medical field because, besides violating the dead without the family’s
consent, the shadowy trade also exposes the recipients to the dangers of
infections since most of the tissues are not subjected to proper
medical tests to establish the donor’s medical history.
While blood donations and intact
organs like hearts and livers are bar-corded and strongly regulated,
it’s hard to verify the sterility of products made from skin and other
tissues since there are no particular structures set in place to
regulate the industry. Many countries leave the responsibility of
identifying and confirming the identities of tissue donors to drugs
makers and tissue banks.
However, this might change soon
since the World Health Organisation (WHO) plans to track human tissue
traded for transplants in order to ensure safety of donors and prevent
illegal collections.
The ICIJ says that a work group
to look at the issue has already been set up and will have its first
sitting in France at the end of this month. The group “intends to use
codes for medical materials and other products derived from human
tissues”.
Although the United States is the
biggest trader of products from human tissue, its authorities are
unable to quantify the number of imported tissues, their country of
origin or where the products subsequently go.
Many countries, especially in the
Third World, including Kenya, do not have regulations on the use of
human tissue. Where they have such legislation, the codes are weak,
ineffective or unimplemented.
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The big boys are not fairing well either.
For instance, although it supplies about two-thirds of the global human
tissue product market, the United States, through its Food and Drug
Administration (FDA), has the inspection records of only seven per cent
of the 340 tissue banks registered with it.
“When the FDA registers you, all
you have to do is fill out a form and wait for an inspection,” Dr Duke
Kasprisin, medical director for seven US tissue banks, told the ICIJ.
“For the first year or two, you can function without having anyone look
at you.”
Circumcision linked to cosmetics industry
One of the most unlikely human
body parts that has attracted a lot of attention is the foreskin of the
male organ, which is used in the production of skin treatment medication
and products.
And with WHO estimating that 30
per cent of the world’s males are circumcised, and that millions undergo
the minor surgical procedure annually, it is clear that the supply
curve will keep rising.
Treated as a medical procedure in
the West and a rite of passage in many Third World countries, the
global demand for circumcision was triggered by a United Nations and
Centre for Disease Control report in 2007 that advised that removing the
foreskin reduces the risk of contracting HIV during penetrative sex.
Riding the wave, the United
States donated Sh960 million shillings towards Kenya’s five-year
nationwide free circumcision campaign, but while a lot of attention has
been focused on “the cut”, few have bothered to ask what happens to the
foreskins of the millions of males who are circumcised around the world
every year.
Besides being an important
ingredient for numerous skin care products and interferon drugs,
foreskin is also used in the production of fibroblasts (skin cells used
in the regeneration of new skin).
Due to their biological
properties, fibroblasts are used in all kinds of medical procedures,
from eyelid replacement, growing skin for burn victims and those with
diabetic ulcers to making anti-wrinkle creams and other products in the
cosmetics industry.
Scientific research has shown that one
foreskin, which contains millions of fibroblast cells, when treated
through a process called culturing, can be used for decades to produce
miles of new skin for burn victims and those undergoing plastic surgery.
A single foreskin contains enough
genetic material to grow approximately 250,000 square feet of new
smooth skin. With this lab-developed skin said to cost around $3,000
(Sh246,000) per square feet, just one piece of this seemingly
insignificant part of the male flesh can generate thousands of dollars
in revenues over a prolonged period of time.
According to the Caltech
Undergraduate Research Journal, published by the California Institute of
Technology, infant foreskins are preferred because they have more
potential for cell division and less incidence of tissue rejection since
they have not fully developed their individual identifying proteins.
The inner lining of the foreskin
is usually fused with the glans at birth, making infant circumcision a
precarious process. Although modernity has tried to alleviate the pain
through contraptions like clamps, opponents of the practice among
newborns argue that, besides exposing the baby to unbearable pain and
possible permanent tissue damage, it is also a violation of the young
one’s human rights.
Intercytex, a tissue generation
company based in Cambridge, United Kingdom, has raised the foreskin
utility business several notches higher by developing an injection-based
drug called Valveta. Dubbed a “fountain of youth in baby foreskins”,
Valveta rejuvenates and smoothens skin withered by age, wrinkles or
damaged by scarring from acne, burns and surgical incisions.
One vial of this medication,
enough to treat an area of skin the size of a postage stamp, consists of
about 20 million live fibroblasts, cells that produce the skin-firming
protein called collagen, which becomes increasingly scarce with age.
The number of Valveta vials that a
patient needs is determined by the surface area of skin destroyed.
However, the drug, which goes for about $1000 (Sh82,000) per vial, is
not approved for use outside the United Kingdom, where it was introduced
in 2007.
Despite spirited resistance from
activists across the world, infant circumcision remains popular in
several parts of the world, which ensures that baby foreskin remains in
constant supply.
In Where is My Foreskin? The Case Against Circumcision,
Paul Fleiss, an American paediatrician and author known for his
unconventional medical views, says “parents should be very wary of
anyone who tries to cut their child’s foreskin since the marketing of
purloined baby foreskins is a multi-million-dollar-a-year industry”.
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