THIS is in response to a news story by a foreign wire agency, “In Iran, unique system allows payments for kidney donors” ( Aug 26). The contents of the article need to be examined.

Health authorities in Iran had indeed introduced a system of paid kidney “donations” from “willing” people to transplant in those who needed them. However, this system proved to be exploitative, since it was always the poorest of the poor who would be compelled to sell their precious organs, and it was only the rich that would benefit. This system also undermined efforts towards deceased organ donation in Iran. It, therefore, proved to be doubly deadly. It was not adopted by any other country.

Iran has since then significantly moved towards a deceased donor programme. Shiraz, a major transplant centre of Iran, has moved away from paid donations and is solely functioning on deceased organ donation.

This article appeared at a very critical juncture when the Supreme Court is examining the issue of resurfacing of organ trade in the country. The medical community, along with partners in the media, has struggled long and hard to bring an end to organ trade in this country. Even with the enactment of a law against illegal organ transplantation activities, vested interests keep trying to create loopholes to allow for commercial transplants in Pakistan.

Any model, whether local or foreign, of paying compensation to poor organ vendors is bound to be exploitative, designed not to alleviate suffering of the sick, but to enrich lobbies having vested interests.

Prof (Dr) Aamir Jafarey

Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture, SIUT,

Karachi

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2016