作者追踪人体交易5年，揭开了这一庞大而隐秘的经济系统：人体市场。
这个市场，包括合法的需求，如医学院需要大量的人体材料，它让准医生们能够充分学习人体解剖学；领养机构送来的第三世界儿童，让美国等生育率持续走低的发达国家填补了家庭的代际断裂；制药公司需要的测试下一代超级药物的各种标准的活人；美容产业为满足消费者对新发型永不休止的渴望，每年需要处理的数百万磅人类头发，等等。
黑色地带则是血淋淋的残忍真相。人们可以在这里兜售自己的身体器官，也可以买到需要的任何身体部位，穿梭在这种市场的有器官掮客、人骨窃贼、人口贩子，更骇人听闻和荒诞的还有，如人称“肾脏村”的印度村庄，因为多数村民都为了钱卖掉自己的肾；肆无忌惮的盗墓人从墓园、太平间、火葬用的木柴堆里偷窃人骨，制成西方医学院与实验室的解剖示范用骨骸；古老的寺庙将虔诚信徒的头发卖给美国的假发制造商，年收入高达600万美元。这两个地带之间并非泾渭分明，而是一个更为复杂的灰色地带。
作者的此次全球人体市场之旅，揭露了这一产值高达数十亿美元的地下贸易在历史上的兴衰和复兴，并展现了早期的医疗研究和现代大学、赤贫的欧亚村落和高科技的西方实验室、盗尸人和代理孕母、人骨贩子和卖身体部位维生的穷人。
虽然地方上和国际上的执法人员均严格取缔人体交易，但是科学的进步造成了市场对人体组织的需求日益增长。令人在窥见种种不忍卒睹、荒诞离奇的现象之余，不由得思考其中的道德困境，以及这一鲜为人知的全球人体产业对当下和未来人类的生活所造成的影响。
斯科特•卡尼 Scott Carney
美国调查记者兼人类学家，《连线》杂志特约编辑，报道常见于美国NPR（国家公共电台）、加拿大CBC（加拿大广播公司）、英国BBC及美国国家地理等频道，以及Mother Jones、Fast Company、Discover、Foreign Policy等杂志。
为进行新闻调查，他曾在世界上一些最危险、最不可能的角落工作，其作品融合了非虚构叙事和民族志。其间，为调查全球人体器官买卖内幕，他在印度等地居住、调查十年之久。2010年，他因其报道Meet the Parents获“佩恩新闻伦理奖”，该报道追踪了一个从国际绑架到收养的团伙的过程，在此报道的基础上他完成了《人体交易》的部分内容。他目前居住于美国丹佛。
The author has been tracking human body transactions for 5 years, uncovering this vast and secretive economic system: the human body market.

This market, including legitimate needs, such as medical schools requiring a large amount of human body materials, allows prospective doctors to fully learn human anatomy; The Third World children sent by adoption agencies have filled the generational gap in families in developed countries such as the United States, where fertility rates continue to decline; Pharmaceutical companies need live individuals to test various standards for the next generation of super drugs; The beauty industry processes millions of pounds of human hair annually to meet consumers’ never-ending desire for new hairstyles, among others.

The black zone is a bloody and cruel truth. People can sell their body organs here and also buy any body parts they need. There are organ brokers, bone thieves, human traffickers shuttling through this market, and even more shocking and absurd are Indian villages known as “kidney villages” because many villagers sell their kidneys for money; The unscrupulous tomb robbers steal human bones from cemeteries, morgues, and crematoriums, making them into anatomical demonstration bones for Western medical schools and laboratories; The ancient temples sell the hair of devout believers to wig manufacturers in the United States, earning an annual income of up to $6 million. The two zones are not completely distinct, but rather a more complex gray zone.

The author’s trip to the global human market reveals the rise, fall, and revival of this multi billion dollar underground trade in history, and showcases early medical research and modern universities, impoverished Eurasian villages, and high-tech Western laboratories, ghouls and surrogate mothers, human bone traffickers, and the poor who sell body parts for survival.

Although local and international law enforcement officials strictly ban human trafficking, scientific progress has led to an increasing demand for human tissue in the market. While observing various absurd and bizarre phenomena that cannot be ignored, one cannot help but think about the moral dilemma and the impact of this little-known global human body industry on current and future human life.

Scott Carney

American investigative journalist and anthropologist, contributing editor of Wired magazine, reporting frequently on channels such as NPR (National Public Radio), CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), and National Geographic, as well as magazines such as Mother Jones, Fast Company, Discover, and Foreign Policy.

For conducting news investigations, he has worked in some of the most dangerous and unlikely corners of the world, and his works incorporate non fictional narratives and ethnography. During this period, he resided in India and other places for ten years to investigate the insider trading of human organs worldwide. In 2010, he won the “Penn News Ethics Award” for his report on Meet the Parents, which tracked the process of a gang from international kidnapping to adoption. Based on this report, he completed some of the content of “Human Body Trading”. He currently resides in Denver, USA.

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