Chinese teen sells kidney to buy iPhone, iPad

Five people in south China face charges for allowing a teenager to trade his kidney for an iPhone and an iPad. Local authorities from Chenzhou city in Hunan charged the five, including a surgeon, with intentional injury, reported state-run news agency Xinhua on Friday, citing local officials. The 17-year-old high school student, identified only for his surname Wang,  had his kidney “harvested” by a surgeon in a provincial hospital in Yunnan province, and his organ was transplanted to a recipient in April last year. Wang received only about 22,000 yuan (P149,300) but his contact person got 220,000 yuan (P1.49 million). Wang brought back to his home in Anhui – one of China’s poorest provinces – a brand new iPhone and iPad. When asked by his mother how he got the gadgets, he confessed that he had bought them after selling one of his kidneys. In China, the iPhone retails at 3,988 yuan (P27,000) while the iPad costs 2,988 yuan (P20,228) – too high a price for Wang to afford on his own. Wang now suffers from renal insufficiency and his condition is deteriorating, reports Xinhua. According to Xinhua, the Chinese government issued in 2007 its first regulations on human organ transplants, banning organizations and individuals from trading human organs. To combat the illegal trading of human organs, the Chinese government piloted a voluntary donation system in 16 of the Chinese mainland's 31 provincial-level regions. Xinhua cited statistics from the Ministry of Health, showing that about 1.5 million people in China need transplants, but only around 10,000 transplants are performed annually. The huge gap has led to a thriving illegal market for human organs. — Marlon Anthony R. Tonson /LBG, GMA News