Abstract
Because people in Japan have not been donating kidneys, Japanese patients who need kidney transplants have turned to developing countries for donated kidneys and the associated surgery. Local doctors and donors make money from these procedures, and there is a suspicion of the purchase and sale of organs. Although the media has reported on this issue sporadically, no research has yet studied the whole picture. This paper reports the scale, nature and ethical aspects of this issue with data gathered in Japan and in developing countries for nine years, including interviews with donors, patients, brokers, and doctors. According to this research, the Philippines, India, Thailand, Bangladesh and China are the main countries where such kidney transplant tourism is taking place. About sixty Japanese patients are known to have gone abroad to get kidneys. One patient paid sixty nine milion yen (about five hundred and ninety five thousand U.S. dollars). This reseach also revealed that six Japanese patients died of infection due to these procedures. The new Japanese organ transplant act, which came into effect on October 17 in 1997,prohibits the purchase and sale of organs, but some Japanese brokers still continue their business.
