Organs Watch

In fall 1999 we will launch at the University of California, Berkeley a small, independent, ultimately self-supporting, human rights oriented documentation center that will track down global rumors on organs, issue reports to the media and national and international medical societies, investigate individual complaints and allegations of organ stealing, organ trafficking, corruption of transplant waiting lists, violations of the human and medical rights of the nearly dead and mutilation of the bodies of pauperized dead, and violations of national regulations and international codes on removing and allocating organs for transplantation.

The need for this project grows first, out of the work of the Bellagio Task Force on Securing Bodily Integrity for the Socially Disadvantaged in Transplant Surgery (1994-1996) The report that emerged from the Task Force documented the many abuses that flow from the traffic in organs, including the sale of organs in countries such as India and the use of organs from executed prisoners, in countries such as China. It also analyzed the complex sources of rumors of organ theft, which have not been documented but nevertheless point to the pervasive fears of a loss of bodily integrity by vulnerable populations.

In a follow-up to the Bellagio Task Force, Professors Scheper-Hughes and Cohen (Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley), with support from the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) conducted ethnographic research in sites in Brazil, India, and South Africa during 1997-1998. Their findings reveal:

1. strong and persistent race, class, and gender inequalities and injustices in the acquisition, harvesting and distribution of organs;
2. violation of national laws prohibiting the sale of organs;
3. the collapse of cultural and religious sanctions against body dismemberment and commercial use in the face of the enormous market pressures in the transplant industry;
4. the appearance of new forms of traditional debt peonage in which the commodified kidney occupies a critical space;
5. persistent and flagrant human rights violations of cadavers in public morgues, with organs and tissues removed without any consent for international sale;
6. the spread and persistence of narratives of terror concerning the theft and disappearance of bodies and body parts globally.

The new project will bring these initial research projects to completion. It will also bring on staff in the late fall 1999 and spring 2000, a seasoned and professional human rights investigator to look into allegations and accusations of trafficking in organs (the most recent of which, emanates from Albania) and use/abuse of prisoner's bodies in medical experimentation and use of body parts for advanced medical procedures (in addition to China there have been allegations from Cuba, Argentina, and Brazil) . Dr. Hernan Reyes, medical director of the International Red Cross, who will help investigate, document, interpret, and publicize the allegations and findings of human rights violations, and assist in putting them on the agenda of international medical organizations, including the World Health Organization and the World Medical Association. Finally, an administrator and part-time staff will coordinate the collection of human rights data on transplantation practices worldwide. The project will be housed at the Program in Medical Anthropology, UC Berkeley and at the Institute for International Studies.

To insure widespread dissemination, abstracts of the data gathered will be made avialable through a web site and in a hard copy archive for dissemination to scholars, human rights activists, NGO officials, and representatives of the media. Overall, this archive will produce:

1. an accurate and evolving map of the routes by which organs, surgeons, medical capital, and donors circulate;
2. international regulations on organ and tissue transfer;
3. critical suggestions to reform the field of transplant medicine and to address the social and ethical dilemmas posed by the intensified commodification of the body associated with these new developments.

The project will also produce publications for peer-reviewed journals as well as popular publications. Nancy Scheper-Hughes has already published several articles based on the first phases of the project. She has presented her findings at national and international meetings, including the International Bioethics Meeting in Tokyo (November 1998), and the American Public Health Association in Washington, D.C. (November 1998), and the American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia (December 1998) .