Organ Donation

Guest: Nancy Scheper-Hughes, PhD, Professor of Medical Anthropology and Sociocultural Anthropology at UC Berkeley How desperate would you have to be to sell a kidney? Say you live in a third-world country, you’re mired in poverty and donating a kidney could fund an education for your child? Or, suppose you live in a war-torn country and a kidney could pay your passage to freedom?  These are extreme, but not necessarily uncommon, in the very active international market for buying and selling organs. But Medical Anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes says far too often the market is unkind to donors. She says having two kidneys doesn’t mean you’ve got a spare. Donors are often in poor health and worse-off financially after giving up a kidney.