Headlines:

• Mumbai’s Quantum Equity Advisors Launch $500 Million Infrastructure Fund

Mumbai based investment firm Quantum Equity Advisors has launched a $500 million private equity fund focused on infrastructure in India. The fund christened – Q India Fund – will focus on investments in infrastructure projects and companies in India. The country needs about $500 billion up to fiscal year 2011-12 to upgrade its infrastructure, and a 30 per cent of the total spending is expected to come from private firms.

• Tata BP Solar raises $78 million for further investments in solar energy

Tata BP Solar today announced that they had signed an agreement with Calyon Bank (Credit Agricole CIB) and BNP Paribas and among others, to raise 78 million dollar to fund its 128MW Solar Cell Expansion Project, which is in the advanced stages of implementation, eventually totaling 180MW solar cell manufacturing capacity.

• Kidney Racket Busted in Mohali

Indicating how deep illegal kidney trade has penetrated into the country, Amritsar police on Monday claimed to have busted another racket with the arrest of six people.

• Farmers Waging a Four-Fold Battle

The situation in Kuttanad where thousands of acres of paddy fields were submerged by summer rain over the last few days is turning out to be worse than expected. While initial estimates by the district administration pegged the loss at around Rs.5 crore, unofficial estimates point towards a loss of at least Rs.10 crore.

Look what Amit Kumar, the kingpin of the Million$ kidney racket had to say after he was arrested in Nepal.

Kumar told waiting media that he was “innocent” and being “falsely implicated”.

Such odds. Such incriminating evidence. And yet such stout defense. Oh great man, I salute thy spirit and thy trust in the Indian Law to bail you out of this situation. All hail!

What’s worse, he could actually get away with it.

I have only one request though, stop referring to him as a Doctor. That is too noble a profession to be defamed by the acts of such bastards.

Image credit: © abro on flickr.

Recently, John Stossel, a reporter for ABC News and a self-professed proponent for free markets, contributed an op-ed to the Atlas Sphere.[1] The question is ubiquitous: Why do people hate free markets? Why is selling of organs illegal? After all, it has the potential to save the lives of thousands of people who die waiting for organ transplants.

Today, 74,000 Americans wait for kidney transplants while enduring painful, exhausting and expensive hours hooked up to dialysis machines. The machines are technological miracles that keep many alive, but dialysis is not nearly as good as a real kidney. Every day, about 17 Americans die while waiting for a transplant.

That is indeed disheartening, but completely expected. People are leading largely unhealthy lives, consuming unhealthy food processed by large corporations such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. Let us take, for the purpose of illustration, the case of kidneys.

Kidneys are vital organs that have numerous biological roles. Healthy kidneys clean the blood by filtering out excess water and wastes. They also produce essential hormones to keep your bones strong and blood healthy. When the kidneys start failing, the body starts retaining fluid and the tissues and the tissues swell. A dangerous concentration of toxic wastes start accumulating in the body. At this point of time, you need immediate medical attention.

Chronic renal disease is the gradual loss of kidney function over time, with few signs or symptoms in the primary stages. Diabetes and hypertension (high blood pressure) are the chief causes that trigger chronic renal diseases.[2] However, educated people can reasonably be expected to choose a to avoid such situations in the future. But man is not a rational animal. Instant gratification and avoidance of pain are a part of his primal nature.

Yet plenty of Americans would give up a kidney if they could just be paid for their trouble and risk.

Is this a statement of fact? Assuming for the sake of argument, that this statement holds true, the people who are willing to sell their kidneys in a free market or to the black market for that matter are not capable of making a reasonable choice. They are unable to realise the repercussions and implications of their choice. Kidneys are organs of cardinal importance and an individual needs them both of them to have a good quality of life, physical existence.

So giving someone a kidney is a good deed, but selling the same kidney is a felony.

If poor people are going to be exploited, yes, it is a crime.

The Kidney Foundation fears that poor people would be “exploited.” But what gives the foundation the right to decide for poor people?

The poor are as capable as others of deciding what trade-offs to make in life. No one forces them to give up an organ. To say the poor are too desperate to resist a dangerous temptation is patronizing.

The people of the country gave their rights to the welfare state under the aegis of the constitution. Life was nasty, brutish, short before then. The welfare state exists to protect the interests of its citizens and the society. Common sense dictates that only a person without means to support himself and his family would be willing to part with a kidney. It would be his personal choice and without any kind of physical coercion. But is this choice as free as it is made out to be? His financial circumstances determine whether he is desperate enough to sell his kidney and get compensated for it. That is not what I would call liberty.

A single kidney grows faster and larger than two normal kidneys and for that reason it is larger and heavier than normal, and so vulnerable to injury.[3] Poor and uneducated people who sell their kidneys are only fit for blue-collar jobs and hence make themselves susceptible to health hazards.

But gatekeepers like Dr. Pereira say there should be “no barter, no sale of organs. That’s where we have to step in.” When I asked him who that “we” is that has the right to “step in,” he replied, “The government (and) the professional societies.”

That conceit — that the government and “professional societies” must decide for all of us, and the underlying hostility toward commerce — kills people.

Legalising organ-trade in itself is not the problem, however leaving it to the mercy of the market would mean that the prices of the organ would be driven by supply and demand of the organ, just like any other commercial product, subsequently driving the prices down.

In South Asian countries like India and Pakistan, an illegal market of human organs is thriving. A number of professional surgeons are conducting clandestine business operations which primarily attract rich westerners who are subject to strict laws against organ trade in their own countries. India and Pakistan have become a haven for medical tourism, mainly due to relatively cheaper availability of medical facilities and a colossal number of poor people willing to part with their body parts for small sums of money. Our problems will only multiply if organ trade is commercialised. There would be a huge influx of foreign visitors and the country would be left cheated and helpless.

The answer does not lie in the extremes. A regulatory mechanism has to be built into place and implemented effectively and a balance struck. Cadaver donations should be made compulsory and alternate means for harvesting organs suitable for transplantation should be promoted. Those who give up their organs should be assured of health services from the government after the surgery and throughout their lives.

A few days back the Haryana Police busted the illegal Kidney racket run by Anil Kumar of Gurgaon. The dude had been doing this for ages and also has two hospitals in Gurgaon. Most of his clients are foreigners looking for cheap Kidney transplants. The news is that he has used his contacts to get away from the country. Irrespective of whether they find him or not, though, one thing this issue has clearly proved is that it’s high time organ trade was legalised in India. That, in my opinion is the best way to protect the interest of the donors who otherwise get duped by thugs like Anil Kumar.

Most of these donors are poor, uneducated people. Nothing wrong with earning money. After all, if someone can donate (read sell) blood, why not other organs, as long as they are not being forced to do it? It’s for the government to make sure that their interest is protected. If done properly, legalising organ trade would actually make sure that many needy people will find the right donor and would not have to use the wrong means. It would also remove the incentives for crooks, who rely on misinformation and fear to buy organs at lower costs and sell at higher costs. Market fores will make sure that everyone is kept honest.

It’s very encouraging to see the government make a start on this. Anbumani Ramadoss, Union Health Minister, has announced the setting up of 10 replicas of the Organ Retrieval Banking Organisation at AIIMS. This is a good first step, but has to be followed by leagalisation of organ trade sooner or later. The Transplantation of Human Organs Bill of 1994 has proved to be useless in curbing the menace of illegal organ trade and needs to be scrapped urgently. It is not surprising that demand for organs is high even in developed nations like US which banned organ trade as far back as 1984. Economic development does not eliminate myopia.

For success stories on legal organ trade, we need to look eastwards, more precisely at Iran. The country has legalised Kidney trade and is doing wonderfully well with its programme. An article from 2002 in Frontline looks at this phenomenon:

In a country where brain-stem death is not recognised by law, the system has virtually eliminated recipient waiting lists. Members of the CFSD have claimed that the regulated system is a “new chapter in the world’s transplantation history,”…

That, of course is just one side of it, as pointed out by the article. Donors have faced severe backlash at the work front where they have had to leave their job as they weren’t fit enough. That’s where the role of the government becomes so important.

History has proved that banning the trade of a good has not stopped the trade, it has merely taken the trade underground. Remember prohibition of liquor in Andhra Pradesh. People did not stop drinking because of the prohibition, they found new ways of doing it right under the governments nose without being caught. Gujarat is supposed to be a ‘dry state’. But it’s a well known fact that not only do buyers of liquor exist in Gujarat, the industry is actually doing quite well.

Related link: Organ Trade, a US-based NGO that tracks “the global traffic in human organs.”