The Pink Flamingo :: Trafficking of Children’s Body Parts from Mexico?

On Thursday I learned of a terrifying story out of Mexico. The person who relayed it is from Mexico, but is an American citizen, married with a teenage son, both from this country. Her mother is still in Mexico. She comes from a family that dates back to the Conquistadors. Her family is well educated, several of her siblings being teachers, and prominent individuals not far from the border. I will not tell you where they live or who she is.

The story is that her mother called, told her not to come back to Mexico. Do not bring her grandson to Mexico, that she will come here to visit.

According to my friend's mother, several months ago a truck was intercepted at the border. Instead of the usual cache of illegal immigrants or drugs, this one was full of the frozen bodies of children, murdered, being brought into this country for organ transplants. My friend was told the story never made the news over here, and never made the news in Mexico. Her mother had an "inside" source. The woman was cautioned to tell her children to keep her grandchildren close and protected.

MY PROBLEM: The whole "freezing" thing doesn't make much sense, medically. I'm not going to go into the science behind transplants, which I know basically nothing about. I'm wondering if the story is true, and if the "bodies" were still viable for transplant, then when one considers the implications and what would need to be done to these victims, it is absolutely horrifying.

I would have passed this off as yet another Urban Legend. Indeed as early as 1996 the State Department was debunking such stories. Then I started to do a little Googling. This is just the first page of what I found. Then came this expose, debunking the State Department's debunking of the "Urban Legend".

"...."About 10,000 organ transplants are performed annually in Mexico; however, the waiting list in this country of roughly 95 million people exceeds 100,000 (Chacon, 2000). Similar to the United States, under current law established in 1984, people must sign up to become organ donors in advance of death, or doctors must be able to get consent from immediate relatives. The lack of organs has created an underground market where donors can earn thousands of dollars by giving up one of their kidneys. Eighty percent of the transplants performed at 17 private clinics in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez are on foreigners, some from the United States (Martinez, 1994). The U.S. State Department and other intelligence agencies were worried about the illicit sale of body parts a decade ago, and were monitoring the suspected transfer of body parts from Central America to the highest international bidder (Sources Global Briefings, 1999). Kidnapping statistics from around Latin America suggest a shift from stealing children to adults. However, concrete evidence of using them as organ donors, amid all the political violence and human rights abuses of some of these volatile countries like Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil, could not be explicitly determined (Davison, 1996). After government officials repeatedly denied reports, in 1998 President Ernesto Samper confirmed that an underground trade in human organs existed in Colombia. At least fifty homeless people were killed in the early 1990s for body parts or used for dissection at medical universities (Semana, 1992). Samper announced a need for an increased crack-down on the criminal gangs running ""human cartels"" which trafficking children, women and beggars (Reuters, 1998). Some of the most flagrant violations in human organ trafficking occur in Brazil. There are 21 medically certified centers for heart transplants, 13 centers for liver transplants and over 100 centers for kidney transplants (Scheper-Hughes, N/A). Widespread corruption has been noted in organ waiting lists and distribution. Organ harvesting, though illegal, is a very well-known practice within the medical community in Brazil. Many body parts may be removed from corpses without consent. This results from widespread corruption within the hospitals and morgues, which receive body parts and falsify death certificates for organized crime rings. During the military dictatorship of General Figueirdo in the late 1970s, physicians were reportedly ordered to meet quotas for organs (Scheper-Hughes, N/A). Several Brazilian newspapers run classified ads placed by people claiming they want to be helpful, by offering a kidney or a cornea. ..."

It gets even worse. Evidently we're not dealing with an Urban Legend after-all. If not, then what's going on here? Well, evidently such a business has existed for awhile. 20/20 even got in on the act exposing a clinic in Mexico. Even Stratfor is warning of such a thing, but the link I have doesn't work. It is also obvious this is going on in concert with the massive drug trade that is turning the country into a narco-nation.

Mexican children are disappearing. Are some of the abductions tied to this horrific crime? If so, what about children who are abducted in this country?

Mexico is a nation that is falling apart morally and financially. Narco-terrorists now rule the country. Over the past decade well as many as 400 women have been murdered in Juarez, many the work of a serial killer, possibly from the US.

And you say you don't understand why people are trying to get into this country any way possible. If you had children and lived in Mexico would you even risk the wait to be turned down in an effort to attempt to legally come to this country?

Perhaps our money would be better spent in the process of sending more cops and assistance to Mexico rather than deporting everyone who speaks with a Spanish accent. Our national security would be better served. If we do not help Mexico get a handle on the drug trade the way we did Columbia and the narco-trafficking there, we are going to be in very serious trouble. Columbia was a few countries and a psychological world away from us. Mexico is right on our border. One of the most important things we can do is assist in the destruction of the drug culture that is rapidly taking over our next-door neighbor. The troubles are already spilling across the border into CA, AZ, NM, and TX. Before long it will begin traveling farther north and spilling into areas not close to the border, as it is doing in Puma County, AZ.

Yea, we do need troops on the border. Not because of illegal immigration or the imagined Islamic terrorist, but to help put a strangle-hold on the movement of illegal narcotics into this country and the movement of stolen vehicles, guns, and ammunition into Mexico. If we save some immigrants from becoming coyote bait, that's good.

The only way we are every going to solve the problem of illegal immigration from Mexico is to stop the drug trade. Maybe we need to get tough here in the US to the point where we consider going after the big time "king-pins" here in the US and not just target the addicted or casual user. The addicts should receive treatment, not necessarily "hard time" if they have not committed another crime other than something narco-related. Face the fact that "our" drug habit is feeding this movement of drugs, weapons, and other horrific products into this country.

People are coming into the US to escape the horrors of their lives. Mexico is broken. The corruption is so wide spread, the average, normal person doesn't stand a chance. We cannot hope to seccure the border until we realize that, unfortunately, we are going to need to make some very difficult decisions regarding Mexico that have nothing to do with illegal immigration. If not, the trickle that is now coming into the US will become a flood.

If we don't act to help establish a "decent" governmental system in Mexico, the likes of Hugo Chaves will do it for us. When that happens, that flood of "illlegal" immigrants will become a tsunami of refugees escaping Marxism.