More than half a million people are waiting worldwide for a kidney donation. Many patients spend years on lists waiting for a compatible donor, but some with financial means who turn desperate can find opportunity in the underworld of the illegal organ trade.
The organs can costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, but donors rarely get close to 10% of that fee, and are often coerced. Recipients can suffer seriously from an unregulated system too.
Here & Now‘s Indira Lakshmanan speaks to Saradamoyee Chatterjee of Lucy Cavendish College at the University of Cambridge in England, who has studied this illicit underworld.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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