Fun_People Archive
8 Apr
WhiteBoardness: 4/5/97

Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2)
From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Tue,  8 Apr 97 12:34:51 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: WhiteBoardness: 4/5/97

Excerpted-from: WhiteBoard News for Saturday, April 05, 1997

Port Orange, Florida:

"Kidneys?" reads the newspaper ad. "I have 2 excellent ones! Long-term lease
available."

Bob Loturco, 60, disabled and barely surviving on a $550 a month Social
Security pension, wants to ease his retirement years by leasing for 99 years
one of his kidneys to someone in need. Price negotiable.

"It's my darn kidney," Loturco said Wednesday. The former boat builder and
car salesman has emphysema and cannot work. But he is not dying, and
believes one kidney will suit him just fine.

Loturco is trying to get around a law that prohibits the sale of organs by
advertising his kidney for long-term lease. But Lisa Jacques of Florida's
Health Care Administration said: "Any kind of monetary compensation for an
organ is illegal."

This is the second time Loturco has tried to profit from his kidney. He ran
a similar ad in Fort Myers, Florida, in December, but ran into a storm of
protests from organ donor groups.

"It's crazy," he said. "How can it be unethical for me to let a man who's
facing death live five or 10 years more and for me to take myself ... off
welfare?"

Loturco said he was willing to clinch a deal outside the country. So far,
his ad in the local newspaper has not prompted any serious offers, but
several people have called out of curiosity.

© 1997 Peter Langston