LONDON could become the centre of a market in human body parts, if plans by leading surgeons to legalise the selling of organs gets the go-ahead.
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“If someone wants to alleviate a financial problem why shouldn’t he do that? It’s his choice,” said Professor Sir Peter Bell, one of a group of surgeons pushing the government to allow people to sell bits of their bodies.
Another member of the group, Harley Street practitioner Professor Nadey Hakim, says legalisation would help reduce the black market in body parts that sees desperate patients travel to less regulated parts of the world in search of that vital liver or kidney. Sometimes, those body parts turn out to be infected.
“Let’s have a system that doesn’t allow organs with HIV or whatever,” he said.
With one of the biggest selection of private hospitals and surgeons in the world, London would be in a strong position to claim a hefty chunk of the growing ‘transplant tourism’ market should the law change.
But many doctors are still against the pain-for-gain plan.
“I don’t believe we should be commercialising parts of our bodies,” said Professor Anthony Warrens, Dean of Education at the London School of Medicine and Dentistry.
