MANILA, Philippines -- Filipino kidneys are the cheapest priced in the thriving global black market in organ sales, according to a non-profit organization against child trafficking.

In calling for the total ban on kidney trade and the revocation of the new national policy on kidney transplant from living non-related organ donor, the Asia Against Child Trafficking said poor Filipinos who sell their kidneys to foreign clients are actually shortchanged.

The organization, represented by Asia ACT regional coordinator Amihan Abueva, disclosed this during a press conference organized Monday by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DWSD).

Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral also joined the group and executives of the Philippine Society of Nephrology (PSN) Monday in urging the Department of Health (DoH) to revoke the revised national policy on kidney transplantation and craft a new one that will protect Filipinos from illegal organ harvesting syndicates.

"The living non-related donors that donate their kidneys to foreigners and rich Filipinos are the poor, vulnerable and the marginalized ... and we have the mandate to protect them," said Cabral.

Abueva said that in the Philippines, kidney vendors get a measly $1,500 or roughly P125,000 -- a price 20 times cheaper than those in the United States.

The asking price in the US starts at $30,000 while kidney vendors get as much as $10,000 to $20,000 in Israel; $7,500 in Turkey, $6,000 in Brazil and $2,700 in Moldova and Romania, said Abueva.

The figures she disclosed during the press briefing was gathered from a recent study conducted by Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a medical anthropology professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the director of Organs Watch, a center that documents the global traffic in organs.

Abueva added that many foreign countries, particularly Saudi Arabia and Japan, send their patients suffering renal failure to the Philippines to avail of these cheap kidneys.

"This is a criminal financial transaction," she noted.

Among the top hospitals identified to have performed kidney transplants on foreign clients were St. Luke's Medical Center, Capitol Medical Center, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute, Potenciano Medical Center and the Far Eastern University Hospital.

She also said that accredited transplant surgeons in the Philippines could be earning P57 million each from the more than 400 kidney transplants on foreigners, considering that the usual fee for foreign transplants amount to $60,000.

According to PSN vice president Beth Padilla, non-related kidney donations jumped 73 percent in 2005 from the previous year with 449 cases.

Between 2004 and 2005, the number of kidney transplants to foreign patients from living, non-related Filipino donors increased by 63 percent, she added.

The group also found "clusters" of more than 100 donors in Quezon province, most of them were farmers and tricycle drivers, who received P112,000 pesos from selling their kidneys.

But 73 percent of them said selling their kidneys did not change their financial status while 79 percent said their health worsened, perceiving a reduction in their capacity to work.

The group of doctors said the new administrative order aimed at eradicating a thriving black market in kidney sales was a "wrong response" to the problem.

The new policy stated that "foreign patients may receive organs from local donors subject to the guidelines and limitations formulated by the Philippine Network for Organ Donation and Transplantation.

"This will open the floodgates for more exploitation of poor Filipino donors by foreign recipients," said PSN president Lyn Gomez.

She also noted that the 10-percent cap on transplants for foreigners provided by the old administrative order has been largely ignored by kidney transplant surgeons and hospitals.

For his part, Health Undersecretary Alexander Padilla said a total ban on transplants to foreigners may be adopted once the new guidelines for kidney transplantation has been drafted. (Inquirer News Service)