INDIA: A prominent medical organization here has ordered a probe into an allegation that some doctors and agents in southern India have pressured tribal people to sell their kidneys.

The Indian Medical Association’s June 22 move came after the Tribal Protection Council in Kerala state presented victims at a June 18 press conference.

Chemban Kanan told reporters that he sold a kidney for $410 to feed his four children and wife, who had been starving for days. According to him, a local businessman took him to a hospital for the kidney removal, but paid only half the promised amount after the operation.

Kanan said the two doctors “compelled me to convince my neighbors that selling kidneys is the right thing for making money,” he added.

K.P. Manikandan, secretary of the tribal council, said pressuring famished tribals to barter their kidneys for cheap money “is the ugliest form of exploitation.” He said June 20 that they have already recorded 26 cases of kidney sales and are now trying to educate tribal people not to sell their kidneys.

The Indian Medical Association has termed the kidney sales a “highly unethical practice.” Dr. Jose M Malana, the association’s ethics committee convenor, said they would investigate the crime “at any cost.”

“The business involves taking the kidneys of poor tribal people and supplying them to rich patients in [Persian] Gulf countries,” Malana said. He said the association is now trying to find out the hospitals that conducted the kidney transplant operations.