Big Donor show a hoax: problem perfectly real

So the allegedly tasteless Dutch reality TV show in which a dying woman would select the recipient of her kidney turns out to be a hoax designed to raise awareness of the problem that in Holland alone 200 people die a year waiting for a kidney.

Transplanting a kidney from a living donor is apparently  "as safe as common elective surgeries and even beauty treatments" and six times safer, for example, than surrogate motherhood. In Iran, which absurdly enough has the only functioning organ market in the world, living donors are paid between $2,000 and $4,000 for kidneys they voluntarily donate. As with so many things, some people want to buy and some people want to sell and so what is needed is an open market - not least because, as with any prohibition, the alternative simply drives otherwise law-abiding people to consort with and enrich criminals operating under no proper safety or quality controls.

Although...in the short term I'm pretty happy with the idea that if I need a kidney I can buy one from an Iranian - Shi'a muslims in a country that's banned alcohol probably have the best kidneys in the world.