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Cab driver gets human organs as pay
A 45-year-old taxi driver in Manilla received the strangest payment for ferrying a passenger early Friday in Quezon City: two jars containing human organs. Wilfredo Trandillo found the chemical-filled containers with a heart and intestines floating in them on the floor of the rear passenger seat of his car.
Trandillo said that his passenger, described to be in his early 20s and medium-built, asked him to stop at an automated teller machine so he could withdraw money. However, as soon as the passenger had gotten off, he reportedly disappeared. Leaving behind his two jars.
Ewwww. A 45-year-old taxi driver in Manilla received the strangest payment for ferrying a passenger early Friday in Quezon City: two jars con... more -
Dentist jailed for organ trafficking
A New Jersey dentist and leader of an organ-trafficking ring is sentenced to 18 to 54 years in prison.
Michael Mastromarino and his team stole body parts from corpses, including that of British journalist Alistair Cooke, and sold them to doctors. A New Jersey dentist and leader of an organ-trafficking ring is sentenced to 18 to 54 years in prison. ... more -
NYC considers “organ removal” ambulance
"Saving the living has always been the No. 1 priority for a New York City ambulance crew. But a select group of paramedics may soon have a different task altogether: saving the dead. The city is considering creating a special ambulance whose crew would rush to collect the newly deceased and preserve the body so that the organs might be taken for transplant.
The "rapid-organ-recovery ambulance," still in the early planning stages, could raise a host of ethical questions and strike some families as ghoulish. But top medical officials in the Fire Department and Bellevue Hospital say it has the potential to save hundreds of lives.
Generally in the U.S., only people who die at hospitals are used as organ donors, because doctors are on hand with life-support machinery and other equipment to preserve the organs and remove them before they spoil. Surgeons have only a few critical hours before kidneys, livers and other body parts suffer damage that renders them unusable.
Dr. Lewis Goldfrank, the director of emergency medicine at Bellevue, said the ambulance project could spark an "amazing transformation" by substantially increasing the pool of donors. The system would be one of the first of its kind in the U.S., although similar ambulances have operated successfully in parts of Europe, he said.
The transplant ambulance would turn up at the scene of a death mere minutes after regular paramedics ceased efforts to resuscitate a patient. The team would begin work almost immediately, administering drugs and performing chest compressions intended to keep the organs viable.
Sometimes, those steps would be taken before getting approval from a relative and without knowledge of the departed's wishes regarding organ donation.
Any organ removals would be done at the hospital only. And no organs would be removed without getting the family's express consent.
But experts in medical and legal ethics said they still see potential for trouble.
"Starting this process without knowing whether the decedent wanted to be a donor could be a problem," said Maxwell Mehlman, director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Distraught relatives could be unnerved by the site of a transplant team arriving so soon after a death. Some might have a religious objection to organ donation, and be enraged to learn that a body had been moved and injected with fluids.
Other families might also - rightly or wrongly - question whether the paramedics curtailed their lifesaving efforts because a patient had valuable organs.
"A lot of people don't trust the medical system to begin with, and in the city, you have additional class and race issues to deal with," said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "I could very easily see a family saying, 'If it was a white, rich person, that person would have been saved. But instead you've sent the meat wagon.'"
Doctors working on developing a pilot program say they realize the sensitivity of the issue and are building precautions into the system, which would start with just one ambulance."
By David B Caruso
Associated Press Writer "Saving the living has always been the No. 1 priority for a New York City ambulance crew. But a select group of paramedics may so... more -
GOOD + ACTION = DONATION
"A donation is a gift given, typically to a cause or/and for charitable purposes. A donation may take various forms, including cash, services, new or used goods as i.e. clothing, toys, food, vehicles, emergency or humanitarian aid items, and can also relate to medical care needs as i.e. blood or organs for transplant." (from Wikipedia...) "A donation is a gift given, typically to a cause or/and for charitable purposes. A donation may take various forms, including ca... more
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Heart pump pumps heart...from the outside
Pretty interesting that this would come on valentine's night.
"The webbing wraps around the heart and therefore does not come into contact with the blood stream. Inbuilt sensors recognize when the heart wants to beat and trigger a series of miniature motors which cause the web to contract – increasing the internal pressure and assisting the heart to pump the blood around the body."
Amazing stuff... Pretty interesting that this would come on valentine's night. ... more -
2 Brits held over black market kidneys
The passports of two Britons alleged to have travelled to India to buy kidneys in an organ transplant racket have been confiscated by police in the Indian capital, investigators have confirmed. The passports of two Britons alleged to have travelled to India to buy kidneys in an organ transplant racket have been confiscated by ... more
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Underworld links to India's kidney theft scam
Latest investigation in the Gurgaon kidney racket case reveals that not only the police but also the underworld is on the lookout for the absconding main accused, Dr Amit alias Dr Santosh Raut.
According to the latest reports, the underworld wanted a share in the multi-crore-rupee organ trade. The underworld had prior knowledge of the kidney trade and gangster Chhota Shakeel was blackmailing and demanding extortion money from Dr Amit.
A senior police officer revealed that last year in January, the Crime Branch arrested two alleged shooters of gangster Chhota Shakeel, who had come to Mumbai to kill Dr Amit. “They said they had been sent to India after Raut’s family refused to pay Rs 25 crore to Shakeel,” he said.
The two shooters, Jameer Zaheer Ahmed Khan, and Tanvir Mohammad Aslam Sayyed, were arrested by the Anti-Extortion Cell on January 16, 2007, near the Bandra (West) bus station in Mumbai.
In 2006, Jameer called up Sunita, the ex-wife of Dr Amit from Dubai and demanded extortion money. Sunita told him that Amit no longer lived with her, but the gangsters were not convinced. They threatened to harm Amit as well as Akshay, their son. Sunita also received a threatening letter from Jameer. Latest investigation in the Gurgaon kidney racket case reveals that not only the police but also the underworld is on the lookout for ... more -
L.A. Doctors report transplant breakthrough
In what's being called a major advance in organ transplants, doctors say they have developed a technique that could free many patients from having to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives.
The treatment involved weakening the patient's immune system, then giving the recipient bone marrow from the person who donated the organ. In one experiment, four of five kidney recipients were off immune-suppressing medicines up to five years later.
This is really a huge breakthrough that could save patients a lifetime of suffering. In what's being called a major advance in organ transplants, doctors say they have developed a technique that could free many pat... more
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