Addressing Transplant Tourism Problems and Proposed Solutions: Regulation Instead of Prohibition

Medical tourism, as defined by scholar I. Glenn Cohen, is “the travel of residents of one country to another country for treatment.”1 Transplant tourism, a type of medical tourism, is traveling abroad to purchase an organ for transplant.2 Although organ sale is currently illegal in every country except Iran, many countries—such as India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt—have thriving black markets for these goods.3 Organ transplants are often the only effective means of treating end state organ failure,4 and the demand for transplants is especially high in developed and middle-income countries.5 Shortages of available donors and organs, however, have caused an increased demand with a limited supply.6 The Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation estimates that in 2013,