Chinese teen sells kidney to buy iPhone, iPad

CBS/AP

(AP) BEIJING - Authorities have indicted five people in central China for involvement in illegal organ trading after a teenager sold one of his kidneys to buy an iPhone and an iPad.

The case has prompted an outpouring of concern that not enough is being done to guard against the negative impact of increasing consumerism in Chinese society, particularly among young people who have grown up with more creature comforts than the generations before them.

Prosecutors in the city of Chenzhou charged the suspects with intentional injury for organizing the removal and transplant of a kidney from a 17-year-old high school student surnamed Wang, the official Xinhua News Agency said late Friday.

A woman on duty Saturday at the Chenzhou Beihu District People's Procuratorate in Hunan province confirmed that prosecutors are handling the case and that the defendants are facing charges of intentional injury.

She refused to give her name and referred further questions to the city-level procuratorate's media office, where phone calls rang unanswered.

The defendants include a surgeon, a hospital contractor, and brokers who looked for donors online and leased an operating room to conduct the procedure, Xinhua said.

It said about 1.5 million people in China need organ transplants, but that only about 10,000 transplants are performed each year, fueling the illegal trade in organs.

Xinhua described one of the defendants named He Wei as being broke and frustrated over gambling debts. It said he asked another defendant to look for organ donors in online chat rooms and someone else to lease an operating room for the transplant, which took place in April last year.

He received 220,000 yuan ($35,000) for the transplant, gave the student 22,000 yuan ($3,500) and shared the remaining money with the other defendants and several medical staff involved in the operation, Xinhua said.

When the student returned home, he was asked how he could afford a new iPhone and an iPad and he told his mother that he sold one of his kidneys, the report said.

The Southern Daily newspaper reported last month that other individuals have sold, or seriously considered selling, their kidneys to earn money for reasons that included paying off large debts, making a payment on a smartphone, or paying for an abortion for a girlfriend.

"Without facing complete hardship, these young people born after the 1990s made rash decisions. In the choice between their bodies and materialism, they resolutely chose the latter," the official Communist Party newspaper Guangming Daily said in an editorial late last month about the Southern Daily report.

"In today's society where desires are infinite and demands are boundless ... blindly competing with others in the pursuit of high-end 'technology' will gradually ruin lives," it said.

[alexfromukr]

My name is Alex, I am from Ukraine, I am 33 years old man. I don't smoke cigarettes and don't drink alcohol. My blood is O+ and I have a good health. If you need kidney or liver transplant, I am ready to give one of my kidneys or part of my liver, but I want to receive a big compensation for that.
[e-mail]

[Dgunner]

My family lineage has genetic arthritis. IN our 60s we begin to go down hill and usually end up in a fetal position with a morhine pump andbeing fed through a stomach tube. I decided years ago if I lived to be 55 I would donate a kidney rather let them shrivel up and decay before I died.For thee days I made calls all over the US trying donate a kidney. After five days of calling I gave up trying.I did register with the national bone marrow bank in washington DC. I couldn't believe how hard it was to donate a life saving organ.I kept thinking how sweet it would be to get that one phone call thousands wait for telling them they have a live donor and he is on the way. Now because of all the red tape someone will die because of the BS redtape of trying to save someones life and it could possibly be a child.I feel sorry for the people who depend on the organ organizations who are not doing thier job or they simply don't care.

[MoriahsTwoSenseToo]

#1 : It is the number one job of a teenager to be rigorously joining the outside world in prep for adult hood and to begin looking at alternative ways of being and doing compared to the decade of indoctrination received at home, for better or worse; Solving today's problems tomorrow will be done with a different mindset than that of those of us who created todays problems.

#2: We are the most social animals on the planet. Infants who are isolated but provided food water and shelter DIE. The only endorphin for emotional pain is social connection (even remembered connections not necessarily connection in the moment). Socialization is a life necessity and a life saver.

#3: With proper libaries, and more guaranteed social services and community centers, with more equal access to income vs. hyper privatization and rampant unchecked capitalism there would not be such a drive, an incentive for horrors such as this.

[retiredgustav]

I wonder how much Cheney's chinese heart cost?

[nicedreamer]

u r very not polite,I hate u.

[NorCalAce]

This is horrible. If he had any understanding of the true value of his kidney, he could have gotten the Apple toys, and a BMW too. The crime here is that he only got $1000 worth of stuff for a $65000 good.

All sarcasm aside, this is not the kind of trend that Apple wants to generate, especially in a country where there is already negative press.

[Overruled1]

I remember that FBI-Japanese Yakuza leadership scandal that was swept under a rug...
About 2 years ago, the FBI made a deal with a leader of a Yukuza mafia to have his liver replaced at UC.
The deal was for cooperation leading to arrests of criminals they agreed upon, along with a few million dollars going to UC, for bumping off the top 3 on the list in favor of them.
What they got was the shaft. As soon as the Yakuza leaders received their replacement parts, they escaped back to Japan.
First, the top three on the list that were waiting for replacement livers deserved better from UC, the FBI, and the US Government.
The Yakuza acted with cowardliness, and the FBI with incompetence.
This will not be forgotten....Dont trust big brother...

[audemus]

It's always encouraging to see a young person who has their priorities straight.

[Overruled1]

It's sad when Cheney can buy his replacement heart and pull it off as if he actually was in danger waiting on a list...71 year old men don't usually get that privileged, unless....

[Dukme]

What a sad world we live in.

[johnboy0777]

hypnotoad-

No one is forced to buy an iphone or ipad.