There is a global shortage of organs available for transplantation and illegal organ trafficking is widespread.1 Organ trafficking includes illegal organ harvesting from a living or dead individual and the illegal sale and transplantation of human organs. It is part of a broader market that includes tissues, cells, or other human body parts or products, referred to by some as the “red market.”2 The most common transplant needs are for kidneys, followed by liver, heart, lung, and pancreas.2 Other commonly required parts include corneas, intestines and bone marrow.3 Organs are sold to anyone who wants organs and can pay for them. Skin, heart valves, bones, and corneas are sold for transplants, solid organs such as brains, hearts and livers are sometimes sold for research, presentations, or drills for medical students and surgeons.4
Instead of waiting years to legally acquire body parts, many people buy body parts from the criminal market. Although it is a criminal offence to traffic body parts or perform transplants from any source not legally affiliated with a hospital or other medical facility, this does not deter either side of these transactions. On the contrary, illegal organ harvesting is a booming, global and extremely lucrative business in which people are treated as nothing more than disposable products to be exploited for financial gain.3,5
Organs for the illegal trade may be obtained from:
- Deceased persons who did not consent to the use of their organs.
- Individuals who were killed for their organs. In some cases, criminal organizations have kidnapped and murdered people, especially children and teens, to harvest their organs for profit.1 There are also many cases of suspicious deaths in which the victim had their organs removed.3
- Living persons who did not consent to the use or harvesting of their organs or were coerced, including by threat of force; were offered payment to take advantage of economic distress; or who consented to sell an organ but were misled about the nature of the medical procedure and recovery.2
Professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes of UC Berkeley stated: Israel is at the top of this criminal industry with worldwide tentacles. Israel has brokers everywhere, bank accounts everywhere, recruiters, translators, and travel agents who set up the visas.4
Examples of Jew criminality in this industry
- In the 1990s, forensic specialists in Israel harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, without permission from relatives.6
- Israel’s very first heart transplant used a heart removed from a living patient (Avraham Sadegat) without consent or consulting his family. Indications that the removal of Sadegat’s heart was the actual cause of death went unaddressed.7
- A Knesset member said that he “had received credible evidence proving that Israeli doctors at the forensic institute of Abu Kabir extracted such vital organs as the heart, kidneys and liver from the bodies of Palestinian youth and children killed by the Israeli army in Gaza and the West Bank.”7
- The Forward reported: “In 2001, an Israeli Health Ministry investigation found that Prof. Yehuda Hiss had been involved for years in taking body parts, such as legs, ovaries and testicles, without family permission during autopsies, and selling them to medical schools for use in research and training. . . . Hiss was never charged with any crime . . . .”7
- The Economist reported: “Donors were recruited in Brazil, Israel and Romania with offers of $5,000-20,000 to visit Durban [South Africa] and forfeit a kidney. The 109 recipients, mainly Israelis, each paid up to $120,000 for a “transplant holiday”; they pretended they were relatives of the donors and that no cash changed hands.” The trafficking was organized by a retired Israeli police officer.7
- The IPS reported:
“. . . trafficking can only take place on a major scale if there is a major source of financing, such as the Israeli health system.”
“. . . the resources provided by the Israeli health system “were a determining factor” that allowed the network to function.”
“. . . international trafficking of human organs . . . [was] promoted by Zacki Shapira, former director of a hospital in Tel Aviv.”7 - An Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, reported: Ten members of an Israeli organ smuggling ring targeting Ukrainians were arrested. “Professor Zaki Shapira, one of Israel’s leading transplant surgeons, was arrested in Turkey . . . on suspicion of involvement in an organ trafficking ring.” Apparently “the transplants were arranged in Turkey and took place at private hospitals in Istanbul.”7
- Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, a Jew from Brooklyn, was arrested by federal officials in a massive corruption that involved mayors, government officials and rabbis. “His business was to entice vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 which he would turn around and sell for $160,000.”7 Rosenblaum pleaded guilty.5
- Dagens Nyheter reported:
“Half of the kidneys transplanted to Israelis since the beginning of the 2000s have been bought illegally from Turkey, Eastern Europe or Latin America. Israeli health authorities have full knowledge of this business but do nothing to stop it.
“. . . Israel is the only western country with a medical profession that doesn’t condemn the illegal organ trade.” “The country takes no legal measures against doctors participating in the illegal business – on the contrary, chief medical officers of Israel’s big hospitals are involved in most of the illegal transplants.”3,5,7
References
- Wikipedia: Organ trade
- O’Regan, Katarina C. (2021). International organ trafficking: In brief, Human trafficking search.
- Small-Jordan, Dianne (2017). Organ harvesting, human trafficking, and the black market, The Millennium Report, 28 Nov 2017.
- Organ harvesting, Whale.
- Epting, Quinten (2020). Organ harvesting, Anti-human trafficking intelligence initiative, 19 January 2020.
- Israel harvested organs in ’90s without consent, NBCNews, 21 Dec 2009.[ ]
- Weir, Alison (2009). Israeli organ harvesting, CounterPunch, 28 Aug 2009.
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