In mid-2011, we reported on the story of a Chinese high school student who apparently sold his kidney in order to purchase some Apple products – an iPad 2 and an iPhone, as the story goes. The teen later suffered from renal failure as a result, and 5 men were being charged for the crime.
According to Bangkok Post (via MacGasm), 7 men have now been sentenced for the crime by a Chinese court, after five of those men were reportedly charged in June of this year. The sentence is a result of a trial which began in August.
China jailed seven people including a surgeon Thursday over the case of a teenager from one of the country’s poorest areas who sold his kidney and bought an iPhone and an iPad 2, state media reported. […]
A total of nine defendants were found guilty of intentional injury, although two did not face punishment because of their minor roles in the crime, Xinhua said.
He Wei, who organized the illegal transplant, was sentenced to five years. Surgeon Song Zhongyu, who carried out the operation, was sentenced to three years with a reprieve of five years, the agency said. […]He and Song both received over 50,000 yuan [about $8031 USD] each through the transplant.
It’s a sad story all the way around – sad that a teen would feel so desperate for some shiny new toys to sacrifice his kidney, and even sadder that careless adults would willingly perform street surgery to remove and purchase that kidney.
Even so, it’s great to see that justice has been served. But I can’t be the only one who thinks that the larger problem of kids being able to easily sell their organs on the black market, likely remains unresolved…
