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Author Topic: "Living cadavers" in Bangladesh: bioviolence in the human organ bazaar.  (Read 4736 times)

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Offline Clark

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22574392
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1548-1387.2011.01197.x/abstract

Med Anthropol Q. 2012 Mar;26(1):69-91.
"Living cadavers" in Bangladesh: bioviolence in the human organ bazaar.
Moniruzzaman M1.

Abstract
The technology-driven demand for the extraction of human organs--mainly kidneys, but also liver lobes and single corneas--has created an illegal market in body parts. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, in this article I examine the body bazaar in Bangladesh: in particular, the process of selling organs and the experiences of 33 kidney sellers who are victims of this trade. The sellers' narratives reveal how wealthy buyers (both recipients and brokers) tricked Bangladeshi poor into selling their kidneys; in the end, these sellers were brutally deceived and their suffering was extreme. I therefore argue that the current practice of organ commodification is both exploitative and unethical, as organs are removed from the bodies of the poor by inflicting a novel form of bioviolence against them. This bioviolence is deliberately silenced by vested interest groups for their personal gain.
PMID: 22574392
Unrelated directed kidney donor in 2003, recipient and I both well.
620 time blood and platelet donor since 1976 and still giving!
Elected to the OPTN/UNOS Boards of Directors & Executive, Kidney Transplantation, and Ad Hoc Public Solicitation of Organ Donors Committees, 2005-2011
Proud grandpa!

Offline Clark

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http://livingdonorsarepeopletoo.com/biolviolence-and-organ-donation/

Bioviolence and Organ Donation
Ethical Considerations, Living Donor Research, Organ Markets
by LDPeopleToo

I’d never heard the term “bioviolence” until today, when I began reading an article by Monir Moniruzzaman entitled “Living Cadavers in Bangladesh”. While the article is an examination of organ trafficking in Bangladesh, its themes extend into issues regarding all forms of human organ and tissue use – and commercialization.

This paragraph in particular:
 
"In essence, bioviolence is an act of inflicting harm and intentional manipulation to exploit certain bodies as a means to an end. This term not only refers to the act itself (i.e., extracting organs from the physical body) but also to the processes involved (i.e., deception and manipulation for organ procurement) in the exploitation of bodies, mostly of impoverished populations."

...
Unrelated directed kidney donor in 2003, recipient and I both well.
620 time blood and platelet donor since 1976 and still giving!
Elected to the OPTN/UNOS Boards of Directors & Executive, Kidney Transplantation, and Ad Hoc Public Solicitation of Organ Donors Committees, 2005-2011
Proud grandpa!

Offline Clark

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How Victims of Organ Trafficking in Bangladesh Fare
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2015, 10:22:34 AM »
http://livingdonorsarepeopletoo.com/how-victims-of-organ-trafficking-in-bangladesh-fare/

How Victims of Organ Trafficking in Bangladesh Fare
by LDPeopleToo

My prior post addressed how the attitudes underlying kidney markets has infiltrated our own. Today, I want to discuss how the kidney sellers fared after relinquishing their kidney: (any bolding is mine)
 
After the surgery, the first thing the sellers notice is the rough cut about 20 inches long on their bodies. The sellers are unaware that if the buyers had paid only $200 more, the surgeons could have used laparoscopic surgery, which requires an incision as small as four inches. To minimize the cost, the sellers are also released from the hospital within five days after having this highly sophisticated operation. Sellers return to the broker’s unhygienic apartment with a permanent scar of this bioviolence.
 
Staying in India, especially after the operation, is so inconvenient that almost every seller travels back to Bangladesh within a few days, despite the doctor’s recommendation to stay a few weeks longer. While travelling by train in such early stages of recovery, some sellers experience bleeding from their wound. Malek, a 28-year-old seller, visited doctors in Calcutta for the bleeding but could not afford to stay for his treatment. When the sellers cross the border into Bangladesh, they reenter their old life with a new, damaged body, the end product of the bioviolence.
 
After returning home, sellers are under constant psychological pressure to explain their absence and to hide their scars.. If the scars are revealed, the sellers make up a story of an unfortunate accident that happened during their job in a distant city. However, some sellers are unable to hide their actions; they are stigmatized and are called “the kidney man.” A few sellers also decide not to get married, ever.
Above all, the sellers’ health profoundly deteriorate in the postvending phase. They experience numerous physical problems and went through severe psychological suffering. The sellers refer to themselves as “handicapped.” Yet, none of the sellers could afford the biannual postoperative health checkup, which costs only 1,500 Taka ($22).
 
Most sellers (27 out of 33 sellers) do not receive the full amount of money they had been promised…
Only two sellers, Abul (32) and Rahmat (28), benefited economically, opening a livestock farm and buying land with the payment. The others have not escaped poverty and are actually living in worse conditions than they were before their operations…
Of Bangladeshi sellers, 78 percent reported that their economic condition deteriorated in most cases after the surgery; many sellers lost their jobs and were still unemployed, while others were able to work fewer hours because they had only one kidney.
 
Every year, most sellers vividly remember their operation day—“the death day,” as one of them called it. Every day, all sellers live with the fear of dying sooner because they have only one kidney
 
Some sellers therefore felt strange when their recipient died. Those sellers could not comprehend how one of their body parts could have died when they themselves were still alive.
 
The sellers I interviewed tended to withdraw from their family, friends, and society. They suffered from grave sadness, distress, hopelessness, and crying spells. In their frustration, some sellers therefore became
addicted to drugs.
 
Thirty-three Bangladeshi sellers typically experience pain, weakness, weight loss, and frequent illness after selling their kidneys
 
A quick review of studies from other countries with legal, quasi-legal or illegal kidney markets will tell the same tale. Commodifying kidneys benefits recipients, and physicians but is highly detrimental to the person relinquishing the organ.
 
Moniruzzaman M (2012). “Living cadavers” in Bangladesh: bioviolence in the human organ bazaar. Medical anthropology quarterly, 26 (1), 69-91 PMID: 22574392
Unrelated directed kidney donor in 2003, recipient and I both well.
620 time blood and platelet donor since 1976 and still giving!
Elected to the OPTN/UNOS Boards of Directors & Executive, Kidney Transplantation, and Ad Hoc Public Solicitation of Organ Donors Committees, 2005-2011
Proud grandpa!

 

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