Kidney for Sale! Kidney for Sale!

Not exactly a new story but I still found “Human Kidneys for Sale” to be interesting. It aired on public radio and was filed from India by filmmaker Samantha Grant. What I found especially disturbing was Grant’s observation that

“India’s Ministry of Tourism is promoting what’s being called Transplant Tourism, aimed at drawing wealthy foreigners in search of a cheap medical fix. Its website even has a page called ‘high-tech healing’ and boasts that a ‘kidney transplant package’ in India would cost only $7,000, a fraction of what it costs in the developed world.”

(The Web site she’s referring to is Incredible India. According to the site, India also offers wellness services such as bone marrow transplants, joint replacement surgery, and, of course, yoga.)

Grant’s documentary on the same subject can be viewed online at PBS FRONTLINEt/World. I haven’t had a chance yet to check it out, but it’s only about 11 mins. long. (Though the ending probably won’t be as satisfying as that of Dirty Pretty Things, the Stephen Frears-directed film about the human organ trade. It’s excellent!–I highly recommend it.)

Ethical Lapses in Recent Procedures

I keep meaning to post about the world’s first partial face transplant, which was performed in France earlier this month. Of course the procedure would be pioneered in France, I thought. One of the most disturbing films I’ve ever seen — Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face — came out of France. The movie is about a man who kidnaps a succession of young women so he can transplant their faces onto his daughter’s disfigured one.

Now the New York Times reports that there might have been ethical lapses in the case. The face donor might have committed suicide, and the patient might have tried to commit suicide as well, raising questions about whether she was mentally stable enough to consent to such a risky surgery.

The article also says this about the patient:

Whether her overdose was a suicide attempt or not, Ms. Dinoire’s doctors say that she had argued with one of her daughters earlier in the evening before taking the pills. She passed out on a sofa in her apartment as the pills took effect and her black Labrador, Tania, apparently tried to wake her, pawing at her face and eventually biting and chewing at her lips, nose and chin.

I can’t help but think of the movie Hannibal!

Questions have also been raised in another pioneering operation, this one in South Korea and involving stem cell research. I don’t know that much about it, only that there are questions about the egg donors (one of whom was? or possibly might be? a junior member of the research team, leading to speculation that she might have been pressured to donate). NPR also reported yesterday that one of the paper’s co-authors wants to remove his name from the paper due to his concerns about its accuracy.

Who Should Pay for Healthcare?

Tuesday’s Brian Lehrer Show will be a discussion of who pays for healthcare in the United States. Visit this Web site to download a copy of the Wal-Mart memo leaked last month. The memo includes possible strategies for reducing the company’s healthcare costs.

The Efficacy of Natural Remedies

I saw a report on the BBC about how honey is being used to treat “hospital infection ‘superbugs’ which are resistant to strong antibiotics.” I can’t access the original broadcast online because I’m not in the UK, but apparently the BBC first reported on this in a 2002 article. Here’s an excerpt:

They discovered the high sugar content slowed bacterial growth, while the honey’s texture acted as a seal against outside infection of wounds.

In its undiluted form, honey had the effect of killing off bacteria, which researchers believe could be linked to enzymes in the bees themselves or present in pollen.

I found this item interesting because I’ve been using honey lately for my severely chapped lips. Chapstick itself wasn’t working; it wasn’t until after I started smearing honey on my lips at night — a remedy that I read about online — that my lips began to heal. Another time, I had a case of poison ivy that refused to go away. It wasn’t until after I took a bath with baking soda that I started feeling better. Benadryl, calamine lotion, nothing had worked prior to that.

It makes me wonder what other natural remedies work perfectly well for our physical maladies — except our usual impulse is to purchase our relief in the form of a pill, cream or syrup. I’m sure there are manufactured products that are more effective and more convenient than the natural remedies.

At the same time, I wonder if the variety of products out there exists just so we as consumers come to believe all our problems can be solved by buying something. (And that goes as well for companies that specifically market “natural” remedies when a generic product would work just as well.)

Penis Envy

You know where penises and the question of erectile function is involved, there will be “a raft of new studies.”

“Women cyclists have not been studied as much … but they probably suffer the same injuries,” Dr. Irwin Goldstein is quoted as saying in a New York Times article on bicycle seat design. The article — the most e-mailed one in the past 24 hours on the New York Times site — also comes with a handy-dandy graphic, just in case you’re, like, worried or something.