The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers

The Red Market is a fascinating investigation of various businesses based on the human body. It covers lots of different aspects of trading in the human body and explores both the market dynamics as well as the ethical issues surrounding the businesses. The author sheds light where most of us would rather not look and he shows how the various businesses so easily cross borders and race to the bottom of the socio-economic spectrum. The author discusses lots of different skin businesses including organ donors, adoption agencies, blood donors, medical testing, surrogate mothers and the commodity of hair. All the subjects discussed will be interesting to those who are keen to know how the businesses can work in the darker more sinsiter corners (or mainstream for some).The books chapters are all interesting expositions. It was hard for me to put the book down as each form of trading of the human body has elements that shock the less exposed of us to what poverty and desparation can do. The author starts with an example in the introduction of blood donation and how some academics have shown that when it is seen as a civic duty the quality of the blood is much higher than when seen as a commodity and that the giving of blood is much higher than when the business is designed through the sellign of blood, as the selling "preys" upon the needy and reduces the feel of those who want to help to feel they are as needed. This example sets the stage of how market incentives can fail for a skin business. Such ideas are included in other literature, like Michael Sandel's Justice, but it sets a nice stage.The book continues to analyze through personal stories, many medical businesses based on the trading of the human body. The trading of organs is detailed and one sees that the supplpy side of the organs tends to come from the more desperate countries and within those countries the more desparate people. Also it is shown that the demand side of many organs is not necessarily associated with better medical outcomes and rather often stems from a desire of the medical industry for more business. It is also shown that through networks of middlement the sources of organs is easily ignored as there is no association with the sources. Much of the books chapters show similarities in how businesses are run for those surrounding the human body. For adoption, children are kidnapped, for surrogacy, the surrogates are predominantly poor and need the money, for egg donors, the chapter uses examples predominantly from Russia, for drug testing, the candidates are students, criminals and the destitute.None of the economics of the body businesses are surprising but the message of the book is that the free market should not be the guiding principal of much of the skin business. One should ask ethical questions about whether we are looking at these in the right way. Most western countries have strict rules on most of the businesses the author delves into, but in poorer emerging countries there is a race to the bottom in who participates and the book shows that the businesses are predetorial by nature. It is definitely an interesting read, i think the only thing a bit disingenous is the authors need to focus on demonizing all the businesses (with the exeption of hair) fairly equally. I definiteyl feel there are bad aspects of all the businesses but there are massive differences between the ethics of some of them. Donating eggs for money i would put in a different camp than kidnapping a child to export for adoption (obviously). More time should have been spent on ways to better protect the disenfranchised vs just saying that poverty and desparation makes people make potentially uninformed decisions and that is evil.

I first heard about The Red Market after reading an intriguing Publisher's Weekly interview [...] with author/journo/anthropologist Scott Carney. Based on an investigative journalism series for Mother Jones during 2009 and 2010, Carney delves into the black market trade of the human body - both living and deceased, whole and in part - following a set of circumstances that left him in the guardianship of the corpse of an American student overseas.This is where most reviews would say something like "not for the faint of heart" or something like that and it's true. Carney has taken a very frank (and graphic) look inside the human body trade but he does so without coming off as a sensationalist. Much of his work revolves around India and China - places where poverty and overpopulation have contributed to the profiteering and exploitation of international adoption, kidney/other organ donations and fertility methods (egg harvesting/surrogacy).I expected to be more shocked by accounts like those of an entire village of indigent women in India who saw kidney donation as their only way out of poverty (Note: it never is!) by agreeing to a small amount of money up front only to be swindled out of the additional money they were promised afterwards AND left without post-operative care. I was less shocked by these deceitful methods of procurement than I was by the attitude of the organ donation recipients: I don't care where it comes from or what it costs, just get it.Carney has compiled his work into a quick read that poses excellent moral and ethical questions - and I believe sheds some much-needed light on a grim traffic that few here in the U.S. know or think about. I look forward to more interviews with the author about this work in the coming months.

This is an easy read but full of heavy thought. Commodification of human bodies is the next step in science, patents, and money markets. How much hospitalization will be calculated against the selling of body parts. It's not just organs, but hair for wigs, bones for dental implants, blood, skin, useable implants, eyes, and then there is the research market too. The issue of can this be done has long since faded from the need to be decided, The question is how do we live with it; and, how much do you know to form an opinion and express it? Nothing could be more timely. I did not give this the fifth star because the development of the material begged for more.

We were required to read Scott Carney's book for my Medical Anthropology class...and I was not looking forward to it because the first book we were required to read was a dud.I picked it up and was mesmerized! I know it's cliche, but I could NOT put it down! I'm a forensic anthropology student, so of course the first chapter about the bone trade fascinated, and saddened me. It's a frank, and sometimes horrific romp through the business of life (egg "donation" - for profit, and surrogacy) and death.I truly had never thought about, or heard of these "live donations", and all the abject poverty...it was heartbreaking.This is a thought provoking, heartbreaking, human rights conversation making book; and I, for one, am so thankful for Scott Carny and his will and desire to write such a crucial piece of literature!

A very difficult topic handled skillfully and written about from first hand experience. I dare anyone not to want to talk about the topic as and after they are reading the book. The well-to-do will continue the impossible search for fictional "perfect health" and "immortality" at the expense of the rest of the beings on the planet, including humans. The more this information is publicly available the better our chances of stewarding our planet into the future

this book is almost only about the so called red market in India

Weird book but really interesting

Excellent book.

Disturbing yet excellent read.