Contents:
In , several U. An American woman, Jane Weinstock, was severely beaten and remains critically impaired. Closer to home, charitable organizations dedicated to facilitating and funding organ transplants are concerned that tales of black marketeering may be at least partially responsible for a reduction in the ranks of volunteer donors, resulting in needless deaths among seriously ill patients awaiting transplants.
Contagion is an apt metaphor here.
Tracing the spread of this pernicious rumor and the fear that it engenders, we see that acts as a sort of mind-virus, adapting to new environments as it jumps from host to host—even reaching epidemic proportions when conditions are right. This way of looking at the propagation of urban legends comes from the discipline of memetics , which investigates the properties of "memes," or "units of cultural transmission.
Think of cultures as "meme pools"—comparable to the "gene pools" discussed in biological evolution—and think of memes as informational entities that replicate and evolve in order to survive. One thing the longevity of the kidney theft tale makes clear is that a meme need not be true to be fit for survival. What it must—and in this case, certainly does—have are traits that consistently induce one host to communicate the meme to another. One such trait is its ability, like a good ghost story, to spark a visceral tingle of fear in the listener. On the darker side, there is undeniably a sensation of power to be had by successfully provoking fear in others.
Some people actually take a perverse pleasure in it. Someone, we don't know who, initiated the cavalcade of faxes, emails and phone calls in early that caused panic among prospective travelers to New Orleans. It's hard to imagine what the rumormonger's motivation was, if not to share a feeling of panic. In succeeding, he or she induced others to do the same.
An epidemic was born. The best remedy is accurate information.
Chinese government They are believed to harvest organs from prisoners executed in the colorfully named "death vans" that provide capital punishment services to outlying regions. This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. Kumar story this month is following a familiar pattern, complete with sensational claims and lurid headlines. Unfortunately for her, the organ thieves in question later decide they're tired of doing things by halves. Contagion is an apt metaphor here.
But remember, viruses adapt in order to survive, and this one has proven to be especially flexible and resilient. We can expect a new strain to show up in due time, in a brand-new environment in which it can flourish and with some compelling new twist to keep it fresh. We can't predict where it will happen, nor can we do much to prevent it. The best we can do, we "epidemiologists of culture," is watch and learn, and share what we know.
Organ Theft Legends [Veronique Campion-Vincent, Jacqueline Simpson] on giuliettasprint.konfer.eu *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In horrific tales of organ . Organ Theft Legends [Véronique Campion-Vincent, Jacqueline Simpson] on giuliettasprint.konfer.eu *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In horrific tales of organ .
The rest is up to the vagaries of human nature, and the natural selection of memes. David Emery is an internet folklore expert, and debunker of urban legends, hoaxes, and popular misconceptions. He currently writes for Snopes.
Continue Reading. LiveAbout uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. The anthropologist has posed as a medical doctor in countries all over the world in order to investigate organ trafficking. She says, some of the U. Scherper-Hughes has tracked organs to hospitals and medical centers in New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, among other places.
At one point, she found herself across the table from a group of organ transplant surgeons at a top Philadelphia hospital. The 60 year-old showed these physicians a sixty page report of interviews from a labyrinthine trail of buyers, sellers, and middlemen, stretching across the world, showing just where the kidneys these doctors were implanting came from. The WHO estimates that one-fifth of all transplanted kidneys, or 70, of them, are trafficked each year. Organized crime syndicates work behind the scenes. Their methods are varied. Sometimes they trick the person into giving up the organ.
For instance, there are cases where the so-called patient is treated for a sickness they don't have, and the traffickers make off with the organ. Or they force the person into giving it. But oftentimes, it is a cash payout that draws people out. There are cases where the person decides to sell their organ, say a kidney or a section of liver, but gets cheated, ending up with a much lower amount than what they were promised beforehand.
Two surgeons in the room with Scherper-Hughes in Philadelphia were implicated. The meeting ended poorly.
The medical anthropologist was tossed out. The follow-up internal investigation turned up nothing. Scherper-Hughes believes many doctors are either involved, ignore where the organ came from, don't ask questions, or are in denial. Let's look at a few documented cases of organ trafficking.
Chinese hospitals are of particular concern. In China in , a hospital run by the state communist party was exposed for trafficking the organs of prisoners of conscience , i. The Chinese communist party has denied all allegations of transplant operations, claiming that neither transplant centers nor or an organ harvesting program exists. Al Jazeera, in February of this year, helped break up a three person trafficking ring in Indonesia.
Other stories include a child in China who had his eyes cut out, possibly for the corneas, an African girl who was kidnapped and rescued in the UK before her organs could be harvested, and in America, the dizzying case of Kendrick Johnson. His death was deemed a freak accident in the school gym — they said the boy suffocated in a rolled up gym mat. Loved ones remained skeptical, however. After a protracted fight, his parents finally got a court order. They had the body exhumed and independently autopsied. During the autopsy, the medical examiner discovered something terrifying.
The Georgia teen was found to have had all his organs removed and replaced with newspaper.
Although organ donation is regulated in the U. Corruptible funeral home directors forge death certificates and consent forms before the human remains are disposed of. In the developing world, people are kidnapped and used for their organs.
Children sold into sexual slavery sometimes have their organs sold. And there are those in slums who give up their tissues, a piece of their liver, or their kidney, just to get their hands on a few hundred American dollars. While Asia is certainly an area of concern, Scheper-Hughes has seen advertisements requesting organs in newspapers in Brazil, Moldova, and parts of Africa.
Organ transplant tourism is a growing field, and here black market organs are often supplied.
Someday 3D printed organs using stem cells will make donation obsolete. But human organ trafficking will continue to be a serious, global problem as long as global inequality remains unchanged, desperate people of affluence and those just as desperate financially tight — tight regulations or not — believe there are huge profits to be had. The urban legend is scary, if not a bit melodramatic. The reality, however, as it often is, is in some sense even more horrifying.