Whether you're looking to make some cash or give someone another lease on life, living organ donation may be an option for you. While you likely already know that you can donate blood and one of your kidneys, it turns out you can put quite a few other body parts on the market as well, as Newsweek reports. Here's a sample of the other items listed in the article:
Eyes: Whole eyes cannot be transplanted. But individual components of the eye—namely the lens and the cornea—can. Intestine: It’s possible, but the risks are so great and the need so rare that intestine donations almost always come from deceased donors.
Pancreas: Another organ of which you can donate a segment. Pancreas transplants are often done to improve quality of life (by reducing or eliminating the need for constant insulin injections in diabetics, for example).
The article also compares the price a kidney fetches in various places around the world. In the U.S., they're worth an average of $30,000 (albeit on the black market—selling organs is strictly illegal here). But in India, you'd only get $1,500 for that same kidney. Which mirrors the rest of the relationship between U.S. and Indian health care—same care, drastically different price tag. Related Content: Discoblog: Will Receiving a Transplant Organ from a Murderer Make You Evil? Discoblog: Need a New Pancreas? It May Come From a Sheep Discoblog: Doctors Remove Implanted Heart After Original Heart Heals
Image: flickr / Look Into My Eyes
