illegal organ harvesting in thailand

[Mur]

This is very disturbing stuff but shows that nothing is off limits when it comes to making money. My wife was talking to her family in northern Surin today and was told that a child was abducted from a local village and had their eyes taken a couple of days back. The poor child is still alive. Apparently this happened to another child in the area very recently. Also happened in China in the last few days. There was a case 2 or 3 years back where a couple were knocked of a motorbike in rural Surin(purposely it would seem) The wife was injured and the van driver offered to take her to hospital while the hubby followed on the bike. The van disappeared into the distance and it was a day or 2 before his wifes body was found at the site of the accident, minus her kidneys, and with a sum of money left with the body. I'm stunned by these terrible happenings. Obviously people need to be very vigilant with such sickness around these days

[tonytigerbkk]

Someone is spiining you a whopper.

All over the world these stories are told and that is all that they ever are, stories.

When I lived in England the urban ledgend was that people were being drugged in nightclubs and waking up in an ice bath minus a kidney.

Do you really believe that if this had happened no media sources would have picked up the story by now?

Edited September 6, 2013 by tonytigerbkk

[pancakeman]

Gotta hate those eye-stealing baddies.

[Mur]

Someone is spiining you a whopper.

All over the world these stories are told and that is all that they ever are, stories.

When I lived in England the urban ledgend was that people were being drugged in nightclubs and waking up in an ice bath minus a kidney.

Do you really believe that if this had happened no media sources would have picked up the story by now?

you didnt read about the case in china a few days ago then. I saw it on yahoo news and in printed form. I wish I could believe that people are'nt capable of such things, but sadly I know they are, and you would be naive to think that they are'nt I would say

[rookball]

it is possible but just doesnt make sense.

thailand have a relatively huge eye bank, though with a pretty long waiting list. doesnt make both economic and medical sense for any buyers to go that route when you could bypass the waiting list

and for the latter story, it is just medically impossible given the time lapse, and a sum of money along the body? you kidding me?

you had probably paid for the sick buffalo before, had you?

Edited September 6, 2013 by rookball

[Mur]

You'll find more on this topic on Wikipedia. It does exist. Plenty of info if you google this topic also. Some people might be surprised

Edited September 6, 2013 by Mur

[hanno]

Where are the urban myth busters.

[tonytigerbkk]

There is no doubt that illegal organ harvesting does occur but not in Thailand.

The problem is that rural Thais generally believe these kinds of stories and through word of mouth they go from village to village.

Show me a credible news report of this (ever) happening in Thailand and I will take note but someone who knows someone, who knows someone, who told them that it is true, does not make it so.

[wprime]

Where are the urban myth busters.

What do you suppose they do? Put a scalpel on a medical bed in a dark alleyway and leave a kid there looking helpless?

[tonytigerbkk]

Where are the urban myth busters.

www.snopes.com/horrors/robbery/kidney.asp

[Commander Tamson]

It always come from a very reliable source - mother's friend's sister-in-law heard it from a customer at the petrol station she works at!

So many cynical bastards on here! Of course it's true!

[geriatrickid]

The tale is wonderful, except for one detail that is unanswered. organ donors and recipients must be compatible.

In plain language, organs are not plug and play.

[JoeThePoster]

If you have illegal organs, then they deserve to be harvested, I say.

[EyesWideOpen]

I remember watching a program that actually detailed the value of a dead person who was formerly healthy.

It was astonishing , seem to recall around 200,000 dollars, when every body part is properly harvested

in a sterile medical environment, and sold on the market. They even had a special machine to harvest

all the skin. So this could be a hot new business for Thailand !!!!! Hmm maybe time to start watching my back.

Here:

http://www.swide.com/art-culture/current-affairs/selling-your-body-how-much-are-your-organs-worth-on-the-black-market/2013/1/27

"The price for an eye is not as the Bible tells us, an eye, but about €600, so a pair of eyeballs is worth up to €1200. Your scalp is rich in hair follicles that can be transplanted into the heads of insecure balding men all over the world and could earn as much as €450. Your skull with a full set of teeth could fetch up to €900 for dental work and providing the jaw is in perfect condition and arthritis-free. If you’ve been tea-total all your life, your liver could be the biggest earner of them all, with a value of up to €120,000. While the heart of a healthy adult human comes in at about €90,000."

Edited September 6, 2013 by EyesWideOpen

[harryfrompattaya]

Gotta hate those eye-stealing baddies.

They are also stealing brains. It seems that they steal brains also do I need to say more

Edited September 6, 2013 by harryfrompattaya

[trainman34014]

So there we are chaps, easy way to make money. Load your pick-up with 25 Thai's in the back, run it off the road and have an 'accident' and Bingo ! Loads of body parts to flog off at premium prices; but wait.....do we need a work permit ?

[lomatopo]

The child disappearing/missing organ rumor used to be quite popular here a long time ago.

Invariably it involved either someone, who's wife told him about someone she knows, who heard from someone else in Isaan, that dozens of children were disappearing, or it involves Nigerians in Bangkok, and the farang wakes up missing a kidney.

Statements like the OPs, "Apparently this happened to another child in the area very recently. ", are giveaways. Apparently, recently...

Maybe the natives do this to scare the farangs?

Feel free to Google: child disappear organ site:thaivisa.com to get your fill of apparently and recently.

Edited September 6, 2013 by lomatopo

[h90]

Gotta hate those eye-stealing baddies.

They are also stealing brains. It seems that they steal brains also do I need to say more

Definitely...I know some victims.

[klubex99]

it is possible but just doesnt make sense.

thailand have a relatively huge eye bank, though with a pretty long waiting list. doesnt make both economic and medical sense for any buyers to go that route when you could bypass the waiting list

and for the latter story, it is just medically impossible given the time lapse, and a sum of money along the body? you kidding me?

you had probably paid for the sick buffalo before, had you?

Actually, it makes perfect sense and you pointed it out in your post without giving any weight to it, yet it is the most glaring reason.

Avoiding the waiting list.

Why do you think that Thailand is the number 1 country in the world for medical tourism? It's not only a lot cheaper than the west, but also there is almost no waiting list if you have the cash.

Like you pointed out, Thailand has a huge eye bank, but there is a lengthy waiting list. Some person who lost an eye in an accident, can't wait on a list. That sort of thing would need pretty much instant attention don't you think?

What about a replacement heart, kidney or liver? If yours was shot, would you be happy to wait 5 years in a queue or would you be tempted to go down the 'express service' route?

The thing is, It does go on, because where there is money to be made, there are humans ruthless enough to go to any length to be part of it. It sounds a lot more credible for someone to kill you for body parts, than (for example) kill you for your motorcycle, and yet my friend was attacked at night by a sword wielding maniac who tried to behead him with a samurai sword just for his motorcycle. He just managed to shift his head to the side enough to avoid the blade. He sped off unharmed and the police said that there were people using this method to steal bikes to sell.

All in all.... There are people here prepared to go to any length just for a small gain. People who have zero value for human life and totally confused by the belief that chances are their victim will be instantly reborn.

People scared of death will pay a lot of money to sustain their own life. So other people are going to be more than happy to take advantage.

Organ trafficking has become an international trade. It involves Indian, Thai, Philippine, Brazilian, Turkish and Israeli doctors who scour the Balkan and other destitute regions for tissues.

http://samvak.tripod.com/brief-organ01.html

These people would buy on a 'no questions asked' basis, I presume.

Before anyone attempts to attack me as an alarmist gullible and naive idiot. I go through life with my eyes wide open, and what I see in the world every day never fails to shock me in relation to what one human is capable of doing to another. The human species is more than capable of committing unspeakable evils than you would ever be able to comprehend.

It's up to the reader to make their mind up whether they believe it or not. But I don't think making fun of the OP is the way to go. Just because you try to protect your confidence in your own safety by adopting the attitude that these things are fables, that is up to yourself. But look around you.

Big Medical tourism destination + high poverty rate + money number 1 attitude = credibility. As a matter of fact, with that formula, you can pretty much bank on that it probably does exist rather than doesn't exist.

As far as the money left with the body comment. That is also very very much possible. Most Thais would not think twice that a murderer is capable of leaving money in an attempt to buy some merit back for their evil deed. My wife was not at all surprised by the inclusion of that detail. But I can see how a farang would think it absurd, it is because they still don't understand the Thai way.

Regarding the location (Surin) I can quite believe it, people go missing all the time there, especially children. It doesn't make news any more because it is strangely regarded as normal, and with no proof, and a policing system that is lethargic and won't follow up on any case if it is considered to hard for them to solve with no trace of evidence, then it is just filed away and forgotten.

[partington]

You need to tissue match organs. There is no point in grabbing a random person and "stealing" their kidneys, say, because in order to identify a recipient you need to tissue match them with the person you have "kidnapped". So there can't be an "express service route", because any person ordering the express service would need to be able to identify a matched donor. Go out and collect 50 hearts in the hope we get a suitable one? Does this make any sense to you?

The websites some people have linked to here are just made up nonsense. Anyone can write any BS on a website.

The illegal trafficking in organs that does go on refers to people who are paid to donate their organs, not people who are kidnapped and killed!! This is a pure urban myth. What happens is that hospitals and physicians in some countries pay poor people to donate say, a kidney. This is illegal in all civilised countries.

In the case of organs that do not need to be tissue matched, like corneas, the evidence that forced tissue harvesting occurs is non-existent.

The case in China just reported was a typical example of an urban myth being created. It turns out a kid was blinded by his own aunt who later killed herself. Mental illness is the obvious explanation. News sources tried to build the myth that this event was another example of organ harvesting, but this was immediately refuted by the police:

"State media previously had raised the possibility that the boy's corneas were taken for sale because of a donor shortage in China. However police said the boy's eyeballs were found at the scene and the corneas had not been removed."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/aunt-gouged-boys-eyes-chinese

This will not prevent this story being cited in the future as "proof" of organ harvesting.

Thais believe in a lot of untrue things: this should not prevent exercise of your own rational judgement and common sense.

[hanno]

BS, and I am not sure eyes can actually be transplanted.

[899cc]

Must be plenty of spare parts on offer around Songkran then...

[ToddWeston]

I pity the poor bugger who gets my liver .

[StreetCowboy]

Gotta hate those eye-stealing baddies.

They are also stealing brains. It seems that they steal brains also do I need to say more

It's the apocalypse.

They stole my mind on Saturday night, but it can't have been compatible, because they brought it back on Sunday

Edited September 6, 2013 by StreetCowboy

[falkan]

there is dragons in LOS..someone told me that!

[StreetCowboy]

there is dragons in LOS..someone told me that!

Dragons, zombies, and clandestine combine harvesters cutting down acres of Wurlitzers....

It's the apocalypse, I tell you

SC

[Darren McKenzie]

You'll find more on this topic on Wikipedia. It does exist. Plenty of info if you google this topic also. Some people might be surprised

It's true. Read this: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4224506

On a somewhat unrelated note, I once ventured into a rather seedy-looking back street around the Sukhumwit area.

I ended up in a bar. I met a woman who I'd never seen before. I drank with her until about 3am.

Then, when it was finally time to leave, I discovered that I was completely legless.

Geddit?

[klubex99]

You need to tissue match organs. There is no point in grabbing a random person and "stealing" their kidneys, say, because in order to identify a recipient you need to tissue match them with the person you have "kidnapped". So there can't be an "express service route", because any person ordering the express service would need to be able to identify a matched donor. Go out and collect 50 hearts in the hope we get a suitable one? Does this make any sense to you?

The websites some people have linked to here are just made up nonsense. Anyone can write any BS on a website.

The illegal trafficking in organs that does go on refers to people who are paid to donate their organs, not people who are kidnapped and killed!! This is a pure urban myth. What happens is that hospitals and physicians in some countries pay poor people to donate say, a kidney. This is illegal in all civilised countries.

In the case of organs that do not need to be tissue matched, like corneas, the evidence that forced tissue harvesting occurs is non-existent.

The case in China just reported was a typical example of an urban myth being created. It turns out a kid was blinded by his own aunt who later killed herself. Mental illness is the obvious explanation. News sources tried to build the myth that this event was another example of organ harvesting, but this was immediately refuted by the police:

"State media previously had raised the possibility that the boy's corneas were taken for sale because of a donor shortage in China. However police said the boy's eyeballs were found at the scene and the corneas had not been removed."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/aunt-gouged-boys-eyes-chinese

This will not prevent this story being cited in the future as "proof" of organ harvesting.

Thais believe in a lot of untrue things: this should not prevent exercise of your own rational judgement and common sense.

If there is a big enough demand in illegal organs, then there is probably a match waiting somewhere in the system.

[denby45]

Gotta hate those eye-stealing baddies.

They are also stealing brains. It seems that they steal brains also do I need to say more

I heard that one and I did hear they are paying a lot more for brains from American nationals.

Den

[itchybum]

There must be an over supply of Penis' about.