The Lemon Fool

parallel universe style query

1) how much is a kidney worth if you sell it? (presumably abroad)
2) what are the health implications ? (aside fomo obvs if the remaining one fails you are stuffed!)

didds

https://www.seeker.com/how-much-are-you ... 75763.html

Kidneys worth about $0.25M in the US.

kempiejon wrote:https://www.seeker.com/how-much-are-your-body-parts-worth-1792475763.html

Kidneys worth about $0.25M in the US.

Blimey. That linked articles goes to some pretty dark places when discussing the sources of organs on the black market.

- Julian

I didn't know it was legal to sell a kidney in the UK. But in America maybe?

Health implications can be complex if you're unlucky. A near-neighbour of ours received a kidney from a friend who'd travelled all the way from Australia to donate it to her. The story was all over the TV news (true friendship!), but it all went wrong at the hospital.

The recipient made a full recovery with the new kidney; the donor, however, fell gravely ill and was stranded on the wrong side of the world for six months while her little boy wanted to know why the family couldn't go home?

It ended the friendship, which was awful enough, but the donor then went to law for compensation. What a mess.

BJ

didds wrote:parallel universe style query

1) how much is a kidney worth if you sell it? (presumably abroad)
2) what are the health implications ? (aside fomo obvs if the remaining one fails you are stuffed!)

didds

I have a friend who bought one in India.

£10k. Operation, paperwork, etc brought total cost upto about £40k - £50k.

didds wrote:parallel universe style query

1) how much is a kidney worth if you sell it? (presumably abroad)
2) what are the health implications ? (aside fomo obvs if the remaining one fails you are stuffed!)

didds

Any operation that involves surgery under general anaesthetic involves a small risk of death, especially if the patient is old or infirm in other ways.

There is plenty of material on t'internet.

DM

I'm guessing that Didds' question 2 (health implications) was asking more about any longer-term implications rather than surgical risk associated with the extraction. Pretty clearly for the surgery itself there is the general risk of going under GA plus all the myriad other risks (post-op infection, internal haemorrhaging due to something not stitched up properly during the op, instruments or other material left inside from the op, etc).

I'm also slightly curious about what long term health/metabolic issues, if any, there might be from only having one kidney.

- Julian

bungeejumper wrote:I didn't know it was legal to sell a kidney in the UK. But in America maybe?

hence my OP

"1) how much is a kidney worth if you sell it? (presumably abroad)"



didds

It is illegal in all countries to buy/sell kidneys. However the Iranian government will compensate living kidney donors
https://cjasn.asnjournals.org/content/1/6/1136
I do not know if the donors are reimbursed according to lost income etc or by a standard amount.

There is a large body of literature on long term outcomes for living kidney donors, the most comprehensive being from Scandinavia. Overall there is a small risk of increased blood pressure/preeclampsia, gout, cardiovascular disease.