How Much Is Your Body Worth on the Black Market?
Organs and tissue are used for millions of transplants and medical products yearly. The traditional path for a transplant is a waitlist, but with thousands of people dying before they make it to the front of the line, some take matters into their own hands.
The Organ Trade:
Every year 100,000+ people join the waiting list for heart, kidney or liver transplants.
1/2 die on the waitlist.
Some resort to illicit means.
Organ trade is illegal in every country except Iran.
Yet over 2 million products derived from human tissue are sold in the US yearly.
Welcome to the Red Market
Blood, bones, and organs:
Of the 106,879 known transplanted organs in 2010 (still only 10% of the global transplant need).
up to 1/10 were from black market organs.[7]
Body parts the living can sell:[1]
$337 per pint of blood.
-Blood farming is the horrible act of siphoning blood from prisoners for profit.[5]
$70 for ten inches of hair.
-Sri Tirumala Temple in southern India is home to many pilgrims who shave their hair for the god Vishnu. As they leave the hair is gathered and sold.
–Men’s hair is reduced to an amino acid used in baking goods.
–Women’s hair is turned into wigs and weaves.
Bone Marrow
–The most valuable part of your body sells for a high of $23,000 per gram. You can donate bone marrow, but it’s illegal to sell it.
Eggs: $12,400 per IVF cycle in U.S.
–Egg donation is legal, but some choose to avoid hospital fees and buy eggs illegally or abroad.
Surrogate Wombs: $20,000-30,000 in India, $80,000-150,000 in the U.S.
Fertility Clinics are legal in India and the US, but on the coercive ‘red market’ you can find a mother much cheaper.
Kidneys
–Make up 75% of the global organ trade due to diabetes, high blood pressure and heart problems. [7]
[6] Theoretically, your body is worth up to $45 million dollars
(But that’s only if you could harvest every usable chemical and part from it.)
From the dead:[8]
–Corneas: $24,400 implanted
–Hearts: Legal–$997,700
Illegal– $119,000
–Livers: Legal–$557,100
Illegal–$157,100
Kidneys–From U.S. $262,900
China–$62,000
India–$15,000
Ligaments and Bones– A few thousand dollars, depending on which one.
Skin–$10 per square inch
Skeletons–$2,993-5,500
Sources of Body Parts:
Legal:
1.) Donated by Family, Friends
2.) Charities, non-profits
Illegal:
1.) Looted Graves
2.) Crooked morticians
3.) Paid donors (often very poor)
4.) Executed prisoners
5.) Live prisoners
6.) Blood Farms
Your body’s worth a lot on the black market. But isn’t it worth a lot to you, as well?
Citations:
- Swide, Selling your Body
- Sidney Morning Herald “Human corpses harvested in multimillion-dollar trade”
- Transplant Living Transplant Trends
- NPR, “Blood, Bones, and Organs, the Greusome Red Market”
- Wired, “Book Excerpt: Exposing India’s Blood Farmers
- Well, “How to Sell your Body for $46 Million
- The Guardian “Illegal Kidney Trade booms as new organ is ‘sold every hour’”
- Wired “The Red Market”