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Date: Wed, 28 Dec 1994 17:44:10 -0600 (CST)
From: mike.holloway@stjude.org (Mike Holloway)
Subject: Critique of French film "Organ Snatchers"

"Organ Snatchers"
Todd Leventhal tleventh@usia.gov

A French television documentary "Organ Snatchers" ("Voleurs D'organes"), which purported to show evidence of child organ trafficking, was broadcast in late 1993. "Organ Snatchers" was produced by CAPA, and is narrated by Marie-Monique Robin. It has been shown in several countries and on February 4, 1994 was shown at the U.N. Center for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, courtesy of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL). The IADL claimed that "the film presents irrefutable evidence" of "criminal trafficking of organs removed from destitute children." This is not the case.

"Organ Snatchers" highlights the case of Pedro Reggi, who claimed that his corneas were forcibly removed when he was a patient at the Montes de Oca mental institution in Argentina. On November 25, 1993, shortly after "Organ Snatchers" first aired in Europe, the Reggi claim was repudiated live on the "Hora Clave" television program in Argentina. Pedro Reggi appeared on that program, accompanied by his half-brother Mario Barretto. Mr. Barretto spoke, presumably because of Mr. Reggi's mental deficiencies. He stated:

     I came here to refute those reports about organ
     trafficking.  Today, we took him to a highly qualified
     institution, to have Pedro's eyes examined.  I was told
     it was the result of an infection that, instead of
     spreading throughout his body, spread to his eyes.  There
     is no cure, because his eyes have shrunk....

Later on the program, Mr. Barretto revealed the apparent origin of the false Reggi claim, stating, "That was my idea, that they might well have taken his corneas."

Subsequently, the Reggi case was investigated further. In a December 6, 1993 letter to the director of Argentina's Lagleyze Hospital, formerly the national ophthalmology hospital, Dr. Patricia Rey stated that Reggi suffered from "bilateral congenital cataracts" as an infant, and in the mid-1980s suffered from nystagmus (a rhythmic oscillation of the eyeballs) in both eyes, the cornea of his right eye contained "intraparenchymatous deposits" and showed "peripheral neovascularization," and his left eye showed a "regenerative cataract." Surgery to try to improve visual acuity was abandoned in 1985 when it was observed that in his left eye "the anterior chamber was filled and the cornea was infiltrated."

In short, the Reggi claim arose from unwarranted suspicions, perhaps stimulated by press reports of organ trafficking allegations. The claim appears to have been made in earnest, but the makers of "Organ Snatchers" do not appear to have sought to verify its validity before including it in their program. As a result, even though the Reggi claim was immediately disproved, the vast majority of people who are aware of this case are under the false impression that Reggi is a genuine victim of forced corneal removal and living proof that such practices occur. In reality, he lost his vision due to disease.

According to an article in the November 27, 1993 issue of the Argentine newspaper Pagina 12, the director of the Argentine Transplant Society, the director of the Argentine National Institute of Ablations and Implants (INCUCAI), and other top Argentine transplant authorities stated emphatically that "an organ market does not exist in Argentina." They also noted that previous accusations of improper transplant activities in the Cordoba region of Argentina had "caused a 90 percent decrease in [organ] donors" in that area.

On November 23, 1993, an article in Pagina 12 cited Argentine Minister of Health Julio Cesar Araoz as stating, "I cannot claim with certainty that trafficking in organs really existed ...."=20 Araoz also noted that Juan Martin Romero Victorica, who had led the investigation of the Montes de Oca facility, explicitly stated that "the allegations were studied carefully, but no positive results were found in any of the cases." The Argentine Foreign Ministry also issued a statement that no evidence of organ trafficking had been produced.

A second section of "Organ Snatchers" deals with Colombia. The program includes a dramatic claim by a Colombian woman, Mrs. Luz Dary Vargas, that her young son, Weinis Jeison Cruz Vargas, had his corneas forcibly removed when she took him to a hospital to be treated for diarrhea and vomiting. The blind boy, misidentified as Jenson, was shown on the pages of Life magazine in October 1993, playing a flute.

On February 4, 1994, the Colombian government's Office of Human Rights issued a report on its investigation of this allegation. It stated that Jeison had gone blind due to natural causes. It reported that in early February 1983, when Jeison was four months old, he was hospitalized, suffering from a long list of maladies, including "severe bilateral eye infection [which] had produced perforations of the corneas, conjunctivitis, and drainage of purulent matter from each of his corneas." The report further stated that "in one of the last evaluations given by the ophthalmology department of the hospital Lorencita Villegas de Santos, they said `that he had totally lost his vision.'"

According to a December 1, 1993 letter from Dr. Luis Eduardo Salazar Oliveros, head of ophthalmology at the Lorencita Villegas de Santos Children's Hospital, to Dr. Francisco Aldana Valdes, the assistant medical director of the same institution, an examination of Jeison's medical records showed that he suffered from a "secondary bilateral ocular perforation and corneal ulcers, which were caused by an aeurigenous pseudonomy" and presented a "diagnosis of bilateral endophtalmitis." Dr. Salazar added: "A patient with this diagnosis has the most negative prognosis possible in the field of ophthalmology because under these conditions the loss of vision is complete." Jeison's medical records show that the ophthalmology department of the hospital recorded, on February 23, 1983, that "there is a total loss of vision."

The February 4, 1994 Colombian government report also stated:

     The mother of the minor Weinis Jeison, Mrs. Luz Dary
     Vargas, received the sum of 40,000 [Colombian] pesos
     [about 60 U.S. dollars at the time] from the French
     journalist Marie-Monique Robin, for the version of the
     story that she gave regarding the child ....  We note
     that the aforementioned journalist did not question the
     verbal testimony given by the humble peasant mother about
     the minor in question at any of the health institutions
     where the child was attended to.  We maintain that they
     were not visited nor were the professional health
     officials who took care of the child or the medical
     records consulted either, as would have been hoped.

Thus, the dramatic claim of "Organ Snatchers" to have uncovered evidence of organ and tissue trafficking is also based on a mistaken claim.

The Colombian government report concluded:

     The work put forward by the French journalist Marie-
     Monique Robin in the investigation of alleged organ
     trafficking in this country and, in particular, regarding
     the case of Weinis Jeison Cruz Vargas, leaves much to be
     desired professionally because she did not present these
     presumed irregularities to the authorities, who had
     supposedly carried out these deeds, for clarification.=20
     With the false publication produced about this case, she
     has caused enormous damage in national and international
     public opinion with this kind of tendentious and
     obviously malintentioned story, which places into
     question the prestige and good name of Colombia.

"Organ Snatchers" also inaccurately claims that a horrifying scandal uncovered in March 1992 in Barranquilla, Colombia provided evidence of organ trafficking for transplant. Press accounts of events in Barranquilla stated that indigents in Barranquilla were murdered and their bodies sold to the medical school to be used as cadavers for dissection by medical students. "Organ Snatchers" claims that the murders were undertaken for the purpose of trafficking in organs for transplants. The evidence indicates that this was not the case.

The indigent who survived an attempt to murder him, escaped, and exposed this grisly scheme was named Oscar Rafael Hernandez. He reported that he was shot and then thrown on a pile of corpses and left for dead. After his assailants left the room, Oscar was able to flee.

The circumstances of Oscar's story make it clear that the people who attempted to murder him were not doing so in order to use his organs for transplant. Once a person dies and blood circulation ceases, the organs begin to deteriorate immediately and are useless for transplantation within minutes. If Oscar's assailants had wished to murder him in order to use his organs in transplants, they would not have left him on a pile of corpses, but instead immediately have begun the effort to extract his organs surgically.=20 A sterile hospital setting with trained medical personnel would have been necessary. None of this was in evidence. "Organ Snatchers" omits this essential aspect of the discussion. Whatever was at the root of the macabre scandal in Barranquilla, it was not organ trafficking for transplant.

A third section of "Organ Snatchers" deals with Mexico. It quotes Hector Ramirez Cuellar, a member of the Mexican parliament, as stating that he knows of a child who was kidnapped, had his kidneys removed, and then was returned home with two thousand dollars. =20

Mr. Ramirez's story relates the child organ trafficking myth in a commonly repeated form: in order to partially atone for their sins, the alleged kidnappers return the child to his family with a generous amount of money. It is never explained why hard-hearted criminals who are ruthless enough to supposedly steal organs from innocent children would feel obliged to do this. Real life criminals do not engage in such inexplicable acts. But even though this aspect of the myth does not stand up to rational scrutiny, it is often repeated, perhaps because it adds poignancy to the story.=20 As the April 18, 1994 issue of Time magazine stated, in recounting the false rumors that led to the attack on U.S. citizen June Weinstock:

     The word-of-mouth allegations spread rapidly throughout
     Guatemala: gringos are snatching babies and ripping out
     their vital organs for sale abroad.  Eight babies, the
     whispers assured, were found with their stomachs slashed
     open.  One had a $100 bill stuck in its abdomen, plus a
     note that said in English, "Thanks for your cooperation."

     There was no evidence that such gruesome trade exists.=20
     But an anti-foreigner paranoia took root swiftly and with
     savage results.

Claims of a compensatory cash payment also provide a supposed reason why the victim remains silent and does not come forward with evidence of the alleged crime. This anonymity, of course, also makes it impossible to check the story.

"Organ Snatchers" also includes an interview with a person claiming to be a police investigator in Mexico, who refuses to give his name because "to talk with someone means that you risk your own life."

This allegation highlights another element of the child organ trafficking myth: that it is supposedly organized by a shadowy "organ mafia" so powerful and omnipresent that it can destroy anyone who tries to reveal its clandestine operations. In classic conspiracy theory style, the purported existence of this "organ mafia" is commonly offered as an explanation of why no evidence of child organ trafficking has ever been produced: supposedly because those who are knowledgeable about this scheme are afraid to speak out publicly because they if they did so they would be killed.

If this logic were solid, then the world would not know about the existence of the drug cartels or the professional criminal organizations in various countries. Many courageous journalists, government officials, policemen, judges, and others have openly challenged the drug cartels and other organized criminal organizations and brought some of their members to justice. If these powerful groups of professional criminals, with their enormous financial resources and many hired killers, have been unable to prevent the exposure and disruption of many of their operations, then the alleged "organ mafia" would logically have to be many times more powerful and efficient than all known criminal organizations in order to have been able to successfully suppress all information about its existence. Instead, the less dramatic truth is that the alleged victims of organ theft do not come forward for the simple reason that their stories are not real. As "Organ Snatchers" itself stated, "It turned out to be impossible to meet any of the victims in Mexico. Every time the television crew found a lead, the families refused to talk." =20

One small section of "Organ Snatchers" deals with organ transplantation in the United States. The only person interviewed is Janice Raymond, who is not a physician but a professor of women's studies and medical ethics at the University of Massachusetts. Professor Raymond suggests that "it's very likely that there is some cover-up going on someplace" with regard to organ transplantation in the United States. She admits that she has "no proof" that clandestine organ transplants are occurring, but suggests that "private clinics" may be receiving organs from abroad and using them in clandestine, illegal transplants. As evidence, she states that although there are only about 4,000 organ donors in the United States each year, far more than 4,000 organ transplants are performed each year. She speculates that this discrepancy may exist because: "I think it's possible to be receiving organs from abroad and for those organs not to be accounted for in the National Registry [the list maintained by the U.S. organization responsible for matching organ donors to organ recipients]."

This explanation ignores the fact that, in the United States, frequently more than one organ is used from each deceased organ donor; several organs can be used for transplantations involving different recipients. Therefore, there are always more organ recipients than organ donors and there is no reason to postulate the existence of a clandestine organ trafficking network.

Any transplant physician, transplant surgeon, or person familiar with organ transplant procedures could have explained this fact to the makers of "Organ Snatchers." But, unfortunately, no people knowledgeable about organ transplantation in the United States were included in the program. =20

In sum, the judgement of the Colombian government that the treatment of the issues in "Organ Snatchers" is "tendentious and obviously malintentioned" seems justifiable. The program gives prominence to the flimsiest, most insupportable allegations of clandestine organ trafficking, while other facts are totally ignored. In this connection, it is worth noting that Colombia's Barraquer Institute of America, which is world renowned for its ophthalmological expertise, has sued the makers of "Organ Snatchers" for libel. =20

In the summer of 1994, more than six months after "Organ Snatchers" first aired, its narrator Marie-Monique Robin wrote a three-part series of feature articles that was offered for sale to magazines in various countries by the GLMR agency in France, and which appeared in the July 7 and July 14 issues of the Turkish magazine Akt=81el and in the November issue of the French magazine Marie Claire. The series, entitled "The Organ Thieves," accompanied by 40 photographs, contained much of the same material that had been in the "Organ Snatchers" television program. Despite the fact that she was writing in mid-1994, Ms. Robin continued to publicize the original claims made in her program about Pedro Reggi and Jeison.=20 Mr. Reggi's claim had been repudiated and disproved in November 1993 and Jeison's claim had been decisively discredited by February 1994. =20

The print series also included distortions and inaccuracies that were not present in the television program. For example, in discussing the case of Jeison, Ms. Robin wrote that Jeison's mother took him to a hospital "when he was eight," at which time his corneas were allegedly removed. Ms. Robin then wrote, "a child's eyeball is fully developed when it is seven years old. An adult can therefore receive a child's cornea. One that is less than seven years old is simply `of inferior quality.'"

Thus, according to Ms. Robin, Jeison's eyes were suitable for transplants into anyone his age or older. However, as Jeison's medical records show, he was admitted to the hospital when he was four months of age, not eight years old, and lost his eyesight just before he turned five months old. Either Ms. Robin's research was so shoddy that she was not even able to determine Jeison's age at the time of his hospitalization correctly, or else she deliberately misrepresented his age in order to make the tale of alleged cornea theft seem more plausible. =20