Further discussion of markets for organs: some new books

Some books that address markets for organs, including an ethnography of transplants in Israel...

A Market in Organs Pp.128-143 Miran Epstein [View Abstract]

This chapter presents a critical overview of the relationship which transplant medicine has had with the market as a source of organs for transplantation. It has three parts. The first two parts discuss the increasing appeal of the market option in practice and theory against the backdrop of the worsening organ crisis and the intensification of pro-transplant interests. The emerging trend suggests that the recent achievements in the struggle against international organ trafficking do not herald the abolition of the organ market but rather presage its reconfiguration in deglobalized, more or less regulated, forms. The third part rephrases the market question. It concludes that the struggle against a market in organs could make sense, let alone stand a chance, only as part of a general struggle against the conditions that have made it so appealing in the first place.

From the eBook Kidney Transplantation: Challenging the Future

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Matching Organs with Donors: Legality and Kinship in Transplants (Contemporary Ethnography)By Marie-Andree Jacob

The blurb: "While the traffic in human organs stirs outrage and condemnation, donations of such material are perceived as highly ethical. In reality, the line between illicit trafficking and admirable donation is not so sharply drawn. Those entangled in the legal, social, and commercial dimensions of transplanting organs must reconcile motives, bureaucracy, and medical desperation. Matching Organs with Donors: Legality and Kinship in Transplants examines the tensions between law and practice in the world of organ transplants—and the inventive routes patients may take around the law while going through legal processes.

"In this sensitive ethnography, Marie-Andrée Jacob reveals the methods and mindsets of doctors, administrators, gray-sector workers, patients, donors, and sellers in Israel's living kidney transplant bureaus. Matching Organs with Donors describes how suitable matches are identified between donor and recipient using terms borrowed from definitions of kinship. Jacob presents a subtle portrait of the shifting relationships between organ donors/sellers, patients, their brokers, and hospital officials who often accept questionably obtained organs.

"Jacob's incisive look at the cultural landscapes of transplantation in Israel has wider implications. Matching Organs with Donors deepens our understanding of the law and management of informed consent, decision-making among hospital professionals, and the shadowy borders between altruism and commerce.