Based on organic composition, how much is a human being worth in dollars and cents?

McGruff

In the 1950s a scientist discovered by breaking down the different elements from which the human body is made, that each person is worth $1.78 http://www.ghigold.com/flaxone1.php3 At current prices, the average body is worth about $80,000 to the 'cadaver industry,' which finds lucrative uses for the roughly 130 pieces of body tissue that are extracted, sterilized, cut up, and put on the market. http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/14.5docs/14-5pg27.html May 11 02, 6:03 PM

Yaarbiriah

This reference given gives a great break down.. each organ you have is worth a certain amount for transplant. Eggs and sperm also have their value. Extracted antibodies are worth a few million. The whole package is worth over $45 million! Of course you could never legally or morally sell a person like that, but that's the monetary value estimate given. That's not even counting DNA information which may well add more millions. http://soundmedicine.iu.edu/archive/2003/quiz/humanWorth.html Apr 24 07, 6:12 PM

queproblema

We could use two different meanings of "organic" on this one: 1. Of, relating to, or derived from living organisms: organic matter. 2. Of, relating to, or affecting a bodily organ: an organic disease. Down at the bottom of Yaarbiriah's site is a link to this one: http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/worth.asp I don't know how reliable it is, but it's copyrighted 2007 and shows the chemical composition of the body by percent, estimating its value at just under $1.00. Adding the value of the skin as a leather substitute (!) adds another $3.50. (That would be the first definition.) That indicates, for you economics students, that demand alone multiplies the body's intrinsic worth by 10,000,000. (That would be the second definition.) So far. Developments in medicine and other sciences could increase or decrease that value significantly as more body parts come into demand or more prosthetics and synthetics are developed and demand for genuine parts slacks or plunges. I wonder who gets that $45,000,000. Not the deceased! This is making me sick. If anybody wants to go down a rabbit trail, check out the ransoms that have been paid for kidnaped individuals. Apr 24 07, 11:00 PM