When Canadian house cleaner Marlene Trithardt needed a tooth replaced, she drove past her local dentist’s office in Alberta and flew to the beach paradise of Costa Rica - to save money. (Huffington Post)

The family of former vice president Lien Chan has been reveling in the joy of three new granddaughters after his eldest daughter, Lien Hui-hsin, sought to end 17 years of infertility with her husband, Chen Hung-yuan, through surrogates in the US. (Taipei News)

Medical and police authorities are launching a major international probe into the illegal trafficking in human organs for transplants, to help clamp down on the crime, one of the researchers said Thursday. (Associated Press)

Nearly a third of people surveyed around the world say they are open to the idea of medical tourism - traveling abroad to enjoy cheaper medical or dental treatment, according to a new Ipsos poll of 18,731 adults in 24 countries. (Huffington Post)

The Medical tourism industry in India has a potential to contribute around 25 per cent in the country’s GDP (gross domestic product) over the next five years if the potential will be fully-tapped, according to Varsha Lafargue, founder and chairperson of  Indian Medical Tourism Conference and Alliance (IMTCA). (Business Standard)

China plans to launch a national voluntary organ donation system early next year in a bid to fulfill growing transplant lists and phase out its long-criticized reliance on organs from executed prisoners. (Wall Street Journal)

Imagine you’re a Belgian industrialist with an idea for a device that treats certain cancers. You’re convinced it would be a huge improvement over the existing standard. But it would also be hideously expensive, at least initially, and your specialized contraption will put your country’s public-health accounts in a cold sweat. How to convince investors you’re not insane? (Wall Street Journal)

The trial for the largest organ trafficking case in China was canceled recently, on the same day that it was announced that Bo Xilai, the disgraced official, would be stripped of his position in the Communist Party’s legislature, the National People’s Congress. (The Epoch Times)

Yet, after exploring so-called medical tourism options in Thailand, India, Hungary and Dubai, I settled on nothing so exotic. (Washington Post)

Eight countries, including the US and Britain, will take part in the Indian medical tourism conference here next month. Indian Medical Tourism Conference and Alliance 2012 (IMTCA 2012), an international conference dedicated to promoting medical tourism in India, will be held Nov 2-3. (New York Daily News)

Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue: Asia Medical Tourism Analysis and Forecast to 2015. In this global economic slowdown when every other industry future seems bleak. Medical Tourism Industry is the one sector whose present is bright and future seems even brighter. (The Harold Online)

Those issues are at the heart of Cohen’s new book, “Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics.” The focus of his year as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the book examines three categories of medical tourism: services that are legal in the home and destination countries (e.g., hip replacement, cardiac bypass); services that are illegal in the home country but legal in the destination country (e.g., abortion, assisted suicide, reproductive technologies, stem cell treatment); and services that are illegal in both places (e.g., organ sale). (Harvard Gazette)

A total of 18,00 visas, including visas for medical tourism, have so far this year been issued to Qataris by the German embassy in Doha, German Ambassador to Qatar Angelica Sturz Hkurja revealed yesterday. (The Gulf Times)

A judge has warned of the pitfalls of surrogacy after the Indian mother of twin boys ‘disappeared’ before giving her formal consent for them to be brought up by a British gay couple. (The Telegraph)

Switzerland’s parliament voted against a bid to toughen controls on assisted suicide on Wednesday, rejecting concerns about foreigners travelling to the country to die. (Chicago Tribune)

Maria is one of a growing number of Russian surrogate mothers. She was paid to carry and give birth to the twins by a Finnish couple who were their biological parents. (The Moscow Times)

The Ministry of Health [China] banned surrogacy in 2001. However, surrogacy is still performed surreptitiously because of increasing demand. With connections and backdoor deals, couples are sometimes able to find a surrogate mother and a hospital willing to take the risk. (Global Times)

A thriving domestic market for in vitro fertilization has made India the go-to spot for patients from Africa, Afghanistan and beyond. (The Global Post)

Pakistan enacted a transplant law in 2010 to shake off its reputation as a leading destination for transplant tourism and bring a stop to illegal organ trafficking. After the passage of the transplant law, organ trafficking stalled to some extent, due to the “attention it garnered,” said Dr Farhat Moazam. But, she added, there is new evidence that “since last year, cases are beginning to surface again.” (Pakistan Today)

Many Australians travel to India and pay surrogate mothers to bear their child. But the local women are often poor, desperate and exploited. (The Sydney Morning Harold)

Premila Vaghela, a poor 30-year-old surrogate mother, died last month, while reportedly waiting for a routine examination at a hospital in Ahmedabad. The news was barely covered by the media – after all, she had completed the task she had been contracted for, and the eight-month-old fetus meant for an American “commissioning” parent survived. (NY Daily News)