Economist Reveals Why Iran Alone Allows Legal Kidney Sales for Transplants

What was said

"It's against the law to pay someone to be a kidney donor almost everywhere with a single exception, which is the Islamic Republic of Iran. I've read the Shia fatwas, the religious rulings that allow it, and they just say, you know, it's not so bad. It saves a life."

Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin Roth explained that Iran is the only country in the world where paying kidney donors is legal, sanctioned by Shia religious rulings that prioritize life-saving. Meanwhile, the U.S. has 90,000 people on kidney transplant waiting lists with fewer than 30,000 transplants performed annually, resulting in thousands of preventable deaths. Roth suggests the federal government could legally purchase kidneys as a national resource distributed by medical need, though he acknowledges this reform is unlikely.