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Chinese Boy Sells Kidney For iPad2 210

Posted by samzenpus from the brand-loyalty dept.
aquabat writes "According to Shanghai Daily, a boy from the Anhui Province desperately wanted to buy Apple's flagship tablet but didn't have enough cash. Rather than waiting to save up the money for the Apple product when it invariably gets marked down, the lad decided to sell one of his kidneys for 22,000 yuan (roughly $3,400) so he could afford one. But, surprisingly, the scenario in which the organ was harvested wasn't in the best of conditions, and the boy isn't feeling very well."
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Chinese Boy Sells Kidney For iPad2 More

Chinese Boy Sells Kidney For iPad2

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  • Greed (Score:2, Troll)

    by kyrio ( 1091003 )
    He got exactly what he wanted.

  • What will he do when ipad 3 comes out?

  • fair swap (Score:5, Funny)

    by joss ( 1346 ) on Friday June 03, 2011 @10:22AM (#36330918) Homepage

    I always thought ipads were offal

  • People do pay 'big' cash for kidneys (Score:3)

    by rednip ( 186217 ) on Friday June 03, 2011 @10:26AM (#36330974) Journal
    People do pay 'big' cash for kidneys, I believe that there was even talk of legalizing the trade in places. It's not hard to see why some people would be willing to sell their own 'extra' organs for what they might see as a princely sum. Many people die from just such circumstances every year, it's a sad reality. The fact that one of the things he bought was an iPad2 is only a detail showing that his 'needs' were purely superficial and enough to get picked up as a story by Slashdot.

    • Re:People do pay 'big' cash for kidneys (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Friday June 03, 2011 @10:35AM (#36331080)
      There are no "extra" organs. A kidney donor's physiological reserve is diminished after donation. Sure, the donor can live to a ripe old age with just one kidney - provided nothing ever goes wrong. However their ability to deal with extreme cases like infection, toxicity and pH/electrolyte imbalances is compromised and they tend to die a lot faster in these situations than a person with two functional kidneys.

      • Re:People do pay 'big' cash for kidneys (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03, 2011 @10:52AM (#36331236)

        This is one of those things that seems "obviously" true, but the data does NOT bear it out. Living kidney donors do not suffer from diminished quality of life or life expectancy. There is a modest increase in blood pressure with increased risk of hypertension but minimal decline in eGFR (ie the remaining kidney picks up most of the slack). Cohorts with good follow-up have followed subjects as far out as 28 years post donation without significantly increased mortality.

        The set of ICU-level conditions that would rapidly kill a living kidney donor but not lead to long-term morbidity/mortality for a non-donor are so small as to be negligible.

        The people who do worst as donors are the obese, but I am not aware of any research comparing obese living kidney donors to obese non-donors, so it isn't clear to me at all that their lesser outcomes (worse progression of hypertension with proteinuria) represent an interaction between obesity and loss of renal function rather than just the pernicious effects of obesity.

        • I'd do it to save someone's life. But just for money? Nope, one kidney punch or car accident away from wiping out that other kidney. Heck, even a bad/awkward fall. No thanks.

          • But you'd always be saving someone's life. People don't just buy kidneys for their kidney collection.

            My Step Dad might need a new kidney in a few years and it's made me realise that this ban on selling them is wrong. People are dying needlessly.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rich0 ( 548339 )

            I dunno - at some level money is life. People with money inevitably do better health-wise. What if you spent the money from the kidney on buying healthier food, or paying health insurance premiums, or putting it in your "insurance won't pay for it" savings account?

            I doubt I'd ever sell a kidney just for the cash (if it were ever legalized so many people would do it that you wouldn't get much money for it anyway). However, the health vs money tradeoff isn't quite as clear is one might think.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by JTsyo ( 1338447 )
            Maybe then you can get someone to donate a kidney to you. At least allow backsies on your original kidney.

        • she gives you the capacity to live, without any more or less than what you need

          if our distant ancestors were all carrying around some massively overengineered amount of blood filtration capacity, the mutants amongst them with a much smaller capacity would do better reproductively with lower biological overhead in terms of needs. and therefore that much smaller amount of capacity would become the new normal. mutants with below capacity would suffer premature death and lower vigor and vitality and suffer repr

          • So you don't believe in the existence of vestigial organs [wikipedia.org]?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dmr001 ( 103373 )
            His data really is pretty good (as you can imagine, it gets collected easily enough in living kidney donors). From my favorite reference, "Overall long-term survival after donor nephrectomy is the same as similar matched individuals who did not undergo surgery." (Segev DL, Muzaale AD, Caffo BS, et al. Perioperative mortality and long-term survival following live kidney donation. JAMA 2010; 303:959. Ibrahim HN, Foley R, Tan L, et al. Long-term consequences of kidney donation. N Engl J Med 2009; 360:459.) Bu
        • Probably the average Slashdot reader needs a RAID-1 metaphor to understand it.

      • The vermiform appendix is an organ. It appears that we've evolved in such a way that it is in fact an extra organ at this point.

  • On the positive side... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03, 2011 @10:29AM (#36331008)

    The boy has probably saved another person life. Hopefully these operations were not too botched and everyone will get to live.

    • On the negative side, the chance of receiving a kidney is now firmly on the side of the patient with the money or highest bidder. But I guess that's more-or-less always been true.

  • Corruption at its finest (Score:5, Informative)

    by conscarcdr ( 1429747 ) on Friday June 03, 2011 @10:32AM (#36331046)
    According to TFA, the hospital where his kidney was removed was in fact a military one: "PLA 198 hospital", which, when questioned by the police, claimed no knowledge on the broker who arranged the deal, since the whole department was "contracted to a businessman".

  • Just his kidney? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by heptapod ( 243146 ) <heptapod@gmail.com> on Friday June 03, 2011 @10:33AM (#36331058) Journal

    Wow, if he gave Steve Jobs his pancreas his family could've gotten some shares of Apple, an iPad 2 and more Mac shit than he could shake a chopstick at. It'd save Steve the embarassment of buying his way ahead in line for another transplant.

  • He will be in bad shape by the time the iPad13 comes out.

  • Hope he got the wifi model (Score:4, Funny)

    by ddd0004 ( 1984672 ) on Friday June 03, 2011 @10:37AM (#36331102)

    That 3G data plan will cost an arm and leg

  • but I hope he got a free copy of iAlysis

  • It's horrible he made so great a sacrifice, so lightly. $3000 is a paltry amount for such a thing.. Man, either donate it, or get actually a decent amount for it such as $100k or so.

    On the bright side... someone actually needs that kidney, and good will probably come out of this.

    Maybe that's what the boy was thinking anyways... donate and help someone... get a little reward.

    Trading body parts meant to last your entire life for toys that will last a few years and then be outdated, doesn't seem li

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cdrguru ( 88047 )

      You have to understand that $3400 in China is a lot closer to a year's salary than you might think. In the US $100K is a decent salary for a year, but not too long ago a Chinese company that was building an aftermarket navigation system for cars said they were paying top software engineers $3500 a year. Now a few years have gone by and things change in China pretty quickly these days but still $3400 is probably more money in one pile than most people ever dream of having.

      It would be easily equivalent to s

    • Why a Kidney (Street Value: $3,000) Sells for $85,000 [wired.com]

      Poor Pakistanis Donate Kidneys for Money [washingtonpost.com]

      Since it's not a legalized trade, prices will vary wildly.

  • This is just a sign of the time - Chinese are the ones producing the damned things, and they are the ones having to sell their kidneys to own one. I am really wondering how much more will it take their people, before they rise against their government and stop their government from printing their own currency into oblivion, just so the foreigners can enjoy fruits of Chinese labor so cheaply, while the Chinese standard of living is stagnating, because their own money does not buy the products, they themselv

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by digsbo ( 1292334 )
      You are very right about this. But consider that the Chinese government has been telling its citizens to acquire gold for several years now, and they've done as they were told. It's in preparation, I believe, for decoupling the yuan from the dollar. I am shocked few people are aware of this, because when that happens, the pent-up domestic demand in China will have a chance to be met, and a large middle class will emerge there in a few year (much like the USA after WWII). In the US, the dollar will becom

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        You mean that for the first time in several decades, a single income will be enough for a family of 4 to make ends meet?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by digsbo ( 1292334 )
          Put it another way, but yes, sort of. There aren't going to be enough jobs for two people to find worthwhile work. It will make economic sense to have someone stay home and do the domestic work, and maybe have a part-time crappy job. And there will be one car. And maybe one TV, and maybe not such great cell phones and blu-ray players, and when things break they won't get replaced, they'll get fixed. There's a lot more to why many families of four have two incomes than just living expenses. We've becom

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

      Sorry, but I would have to give a kidney to own one too, I am obiously not going to but that doesnt change the situation. So I ask why should I care about the chineese having real money when working class slobs like I are in the same perdictiment

      • But my question was not directed at you, reread my comment. My question was a rhetorical one, directed at the people of China - What gives, people of China? Why do you want to give up you kidneys to own stupid iPads, when you are the ones manufacturing them? All you have to do is send a real message to your government (or better yet, take it down), so that the Chinese currency is no longer manufactured and US/EU inflation is no longer pushed into Asia.

        As for you, you should be asking exactly the same thing

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cdrguru ( 88047 )

          Businesses aren't manufacturing anything in the US partly because of regulation but also because it makes no sense to do so any longer. The cost of manufacturing stuff in China is so low that it makes more sense to make it there and ship it - even at outrageous shipping costs - than it does to make it in the US.

          I recently had some stuff made in China and shipped here. The shipping cost was 25% of the cost of the finished products, but the total cost was about 50% of the cost of doing the same thing in the

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rich0 ( 548339 )

            Nobody is going to start a nuclear war over treasury bills. While the people that run China might end up living in slightly less opulence after a trade war, they're far better off than they would be living in a parking lot. Those guys have something to lose.

            China doesn't really have the ability to strike at the US conventionally, and the US doesn't need to bomb the Chinese (they're already ahead if they cancel the debt). I'm sure there might be some skirmishes in far-away lands, and a bunch of people wil

            • The only real problem from the US standpoint is that we've gotten used to this arrangement.

              - no, that's not the real problem.

              The real problem is that there is no capital investment in USA, it moved to China and other places, and this means that for USA to be able to restart manufacturing, it either will have to rebuild all the tools it will need by hand, if the trade is fully blocked, or it will have to sell a lot of energy and other mined resources to Chinese and others, in order to get the tools, machines, finished products necessary to restart manufacturing and production.

              However there is ano

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Rich0 ( 548339 )

                True, but a trade war will start slowly over time too. If the Chinese float their currency their prices will steadily rise, making it less cost-effective to outsource there. Either work will shift to some other country, or back to the US. I doubt the Chinese will just wake up one day and declare a blockade or something, and the US isn't about to just do something like default on its debt without some kind of warning.

                • Either work will shift to some other country, or back to the US.

                  - why would it go back to the place, where the market conditions are nearly the worst in the world for investment capital and business regulations and labor market, it's really not going to return. It will have to be rebuilt domestically, with new businesses, willing to start from scratch basically, which is going to be insanely difficult, as the interest rates for US based businesses to get real investment and to be able to buy real machines and tools and talent will be very high, I expect high double dig

          • The main 3 reasons for any business not to stay in USA are:

            1. Inflation by government printing.
            2. Income/corporate/payroll taxes, as well as the mess of medical taxes.
            3. Business regulations.

            The cost of labor is really on a distant fourth if it even enters the real equation, the real problem is always the government, and if government is not involved, the cost of labor will adjust to the market conditions, so it's really not that important.

            Business regulations kill far more potential jobs in US than cost of

  • Our world is full of surprises, it's good to know that there are good and honest black market organs dealer out there that would not take advantage of someone in need for cash. I can sleep easy at night knowing that if i need cash i can always turn to a black market organs dealer and trust that he/she/they would only removed what I'm willing to sell rather than murder me and sell all of my organs.

  • Look lame in comparison.

  • This isn't a south park script that got leaked? Seriously this is the kind of crap Kenny would do.

  • He could have bought a Nigerian baby for $192 (see: http://www.nodeju.com/nigerian-police-closes-baby-factory/9840/ [nodeju.com] ), sold the baby's kidney for $3400, bought an iPad and have come out of it with a profit!

    While life is valuable here in western countries (consider what Americans spend in the final year of their lives for a few more months of breathing), elsewhere, and depending upon where you are, life can be bought for as little as a few hundred.

    That life transported elsewhere can then be bought and sold f

    • " There's potential here"

      you sense potential? i sense evil. i have to wonder at what kind of asshole you are

      of course desperate people do desperate things. you think that's some sort of revelation? it's typical, no matter how much money is floating around in society. in the rich fat decadent west, are guys who lose it all on gambling, or can't laid with a child as they want to, or whatever, and a black market for certain desperate people in desperate situations exists. everywhere. not just nigeria

      go to guet

    • It's a weird world we live in, but I'm surprised no one in China has yet thought about selling organs from cheaply produced Nigerian babies.

      Well the main issue would whether the cheap humans have the genetic / antibody match to be a suitable donor for the expensive human.

    • I'm really hoping this is a viciously satirical post, but I'm falling victim to Poe's Law.

      If you're aping Jonathan Swift, congratulations, you got me.

      If you're not, and you're actually as old as your user id would seem to indicate, then might I suggest that in your Last Will and Testament you request that they put an all-steel fireproof shovel into your coffin with you before they put you in the ground?

      It'll make things easier when you get to Hell and they tell you to start digging.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      Perhaps Americans can adopt that model to pay for their mandatory health insurance (which they'll need afterwards).

  • China makes some great Android tablets wonder why he didn't just spend under $100 on one of those? Screw Apple!
  • Did anyone else immediately think of "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance"? That is a seriously disturbing movie.
  • His mother called the blue ones when she saw all his tech stuff: she thought he'd stolen it.

  • I have to blame his parents, but it takes a village to raise a child.

    In this case, I see the village as the whole world which is dominated by advertising/marketing messages.

    Many of us feel immune or dulled to the messages of advertisers. But children are especially vulnerable to it. This is why so much is being marketed to younger people rather than to older people -- younger people are more receptive to advertising. (Among older people, the question of necessity is more often asked as is the question of

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cdrguru ( 88047 )

      If the parents are incompentent to raise a child, I guess it takes a village to step in and take over. Otherwise, the Hillaryism is just silly - you end up with a child with the values of a mob (the village) rather than the values of a person. Mobs are good for some things, but ethics and morality get left behind.

  • If the lad had stolen in iPad 2, it might have cost far more than just a kidney if he had gone to jail. He might have ended up with both kidneys harvested and most other major organs.
  • But really, this kid got what he deserves. This kind of stuff goes on in China all the damn time. On the upside, the kid didn't have his organs harvested when he was in a labor camp. He at least got paid a bit of money, and has something to show for it. The only reason this made any kind of Western headlines is because he wanted an Apple widget. If organ harvesting was feasable back when America was up & coming, you can bet the same crap would have gone on. Instead? We just snatched people of different

  • Before anyone starts spouting off about how we shouldn't apply "Western" values to Asia, I'd like to point out that whoever wielded the knife here was in screaming violation of Chinese medical ethical standards:

    The Chinese Counterpart to the Hippocratic Oath [wikipedia.org]

    "A Great Physician should not pay attention to status, wealth or age; neither should he question whether the particular person is attractive or unattractive, whether he is an enemy or friend, whether he is a Chinese or a foreigner, or finally, whether he

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