Word: organized
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...allegations, the element of the sweeping sting that grabbed the most attention was the accusation that Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, a New York City resident, had tried to orchestrate the sale of a human kidney for $160,000. The black-market kidney trade is a growing problem - the World Health Organization estimates that organ-trafficking accounts for 5% to 10% of all kidney transplants worldwide. So how do kidney sales work...
...organ market is largely made up of impoverished and desperate sellers, wealthy, ailing customers and predatory middlemen. Most sales take place in developing countries, where a kidney can often be purchased for the price of a high-end TV. In Iran - the only country in the world where organ sales are legal - a healthy kidney retails for about $6,000. The going rate is less than half that amount in India, which has an abundance of doctors capable of performing the procedure and destitute masses often unable to raise cash any other way. In January 2008, police busted an organ...
Buying or selling a kidney in the U.S. is much more difficult, not least because there are easier ways to make a buck. Selling organs has been illegal since 1984, and is punishable by five years in prison and a $50,000 fine. Even if breaking the law doesn't deter you, it's difficult to hoodwink a doctor into believing that a fraudulent organ donor's motives are purely altruistic. U.S. hospitals run donor-recipient couples through a series of interviews, including a meeting with a social worker, who checks to make sure that no money is exchanging hands...
Rosenbaum would be the first person to face federal organ-trafficking charges in the U.S. According to investigators, he called himself a "matchmaker" who connected those in need of a transplant with those in need of cash. Rosenbaum allegedly found sellers in Israel, where a network of operatives targeted recent immigrants to the country. He is said to have paid donors an average of $10,000 for their services and charged recipients more than ten times that amount...
...natural compound used as an immunosuppressant in organ-transplant patients has been found to extend life in mice, according to a study published on July 8 in the journal Nature. Aging mice that were given the substance, rapamycin, lived significantly longer than mice that didn't get the drug: females that received rapamycin were 13% older at death and males 9% older...