Nope, this isn’t a fake story from the cover of the National Enquirer, it’s a real story about how Chinese teenager Xiao Zheng, has sold one of his kidneys through a broker for the Yuan 20,000 needed to buy an iPhone and an iPad 2.
The report on Yahoo! News says that the teenager, who lives in the south-eastern province of Anhui apparently met a broker on the Internet who arranged everything for him, and then travelled to Chenzhou province in central China where his kidney was removed in a hospital.
His mother was reportedly devastated by the news saying…
“When my son came home he had a laptop computer and an Apple phone. Where did all that money come from? Only when he could bear it no longer did he tell us. He said, Mum, I sold my kidney. When I heard it I felt like the sky was crashing down on our family.”
His mother then alerted the police though they were unable to locate the broker. The hospital in question was discovered not to be authorised to perform transplants and claimed they had no official record of the surgery taking place.
This news is utterly chilling, not just because some tech products these days are attracting this type of devotion from teenagers and children, but that unscrupulous people are willing to exploit them for financial gain in such an appaling way. The police certainly must find this ‘broker’ and bring him to justice.
It raises all manner of ethical and moral questions that should be addressed, not just by national governments, hospitals, medical professionals and the legal establishment, but also by the technology companies. Is there something in the way these products are being advertised that drove this particular teenager into his actions?
Naturally this is the same argument that’s been used against gamers who may or may not later go on to commit violent acts. All reasonable people recognise there is not a link. It will be important though not to brush this incident aside, but rather to see if any lessons can be learnt to prevent it ever happening again.
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At least if he dies over this he is eligible for a Darwin Award.
Was it an iphone or an ipad, i somewhere heard it was an ipad?
I really do not think that it makes a difference.
20.000 Yuan equal 3.080 USD (2.100 EUR).
“When you got no IPhone, then you got no …. and no….! When you got no IPhone then you got no IPhone!” (German advertisement)
Although it’s age is “missing”, I guess he was too young to give away his kidney, however the hospital could cut him open without a medical reason and permission of an adult.
I dislike the advertisement campaign, but the broker is to blame as he has taken the kidney.
I wonder how this teenager could do this! Health is more important than everything else. Nowadays ads on internet and television are corrupting and diseducating people (especially teenagers), we must stop them!
This are the kind of story’s who are more and more convincing me than the trend is not going the philosophical wa,y but to the i want way.
Its a bit like the Bacardi Breezer (about 3 euro a piece) trend where young girls are selling there body for one bacardi breezer.
What is he going to do when the next iteration of the iphone comes? Seriously, every year we see a new iphone and a new ipad and most apple fans try as hard as possible to stay on the bleeding edge, he surely will be dissapointed
I really don’t understand is iphone more important than your health, this is very disappointing.
As someone living in Asia and very close to the PRC, the whole story (i.e. not just the kid selling his kidney, but about the fact that part of the hospital was “rented” out to a private individual and the fact that that the authorities can’t track anyone) isn’t actually all that surprising.
Chinese believe in material things and the number one material item in China at present is the Ipad. Secondly everyone is on the take, I’m sure the hospital, the authorities, the doctors, local politicians are all taking a cut of this whole unauthorised kidney transplant operation.
Apparently now a Chinese teen girl has offered her virginity for an iPhone4 … http://asiancorrespondent.com/58077/chinese-teen-offers-virginity-in-exchange-for-iphone-4/
Chinese -_-