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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Foreigners permanently banned from getting donated kidneys in RP (1:54 p.m.)
MANILA -- Foreigners will be permanently banned from receiving kidneys for transplant in the Philippines to prevent the country from becoming a major Asian center in an already thriving black-market trade, health officials announced Tuesday.
Extensive kidney trading involving impoverished Filipinos and prisoners - who sell their organs for paltry sums to syndicates catering mostly to foreign clients - has been reported by the local media in recent years. A temporary ban on kidney transplants involving foreigners was recently imposed.
China and Pakistan, among the world's biggest sources of kidneys, have taken steps to outlaw the sale of human organs, and desperate foreigners may be prompted to increasingly turn to the Philippines for kidneys, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said.
"The poor always end up as the ones being abused," he said, adding kidney transplants for foreigners have risen in recent years. "The sale of one's body parts is condemnable and ethically improper. We have to stop it."
The sale of organs is illegal in the Philippines. The ban - intended to protect poor Filipinos from exploitation - will prohibit foreigners from getting donated kidneys unless they can prove a donor is related to them by blood, Duque said.
He said the ban was endorsed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and will take effect in about three weeks. Kidney donations among Filipinos will continue but will be strictly monitored by a new regulatory body, he said. (AP) |
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