Dutch kidney giveaway TV show was a hoax

A Dutch TV show featuring a dying woman deciding which of three candidates would receive her kidney turned out to be a hoax Friday, in a stunt to highlight the need for more organ donors. In the last minutes of the live show which had attracted worldwide attention, right before the fake donor was about to make her choice known, presenter Patrick Lodiers revealed all. ‘We are not giving away a kidney here, that is going too far, even for us,’ he told the audience. The woman, introduced as potential donor Lisa, 37, with an incurable brain tumour, was actually an actress, the BNN public channel said. The three kidney patients who were presented as candidates were real - but they were in on the hoax and wanted to cooperate to motivate people to register as donors, BNN said. The original premise of the show had sparked uproar in the Netherlands and abroad, with many condemning it as unethical to make entertainment out of a life-and-death situation. Journalists and television crews from all over the world had flocked to the Dutch television studio where the show was held. The channel, which has built up a following of predominantly young viewers through controversial programming, screened the show on the fifth anniversary of the death of its founder, Bart de Graaff, who had waited years for a kidney transplant. The publicity stunt was dreamed up by BNN and producer Endemol, the creators of the ‘Big Brother’ reality show. (AFP via Middle East Times)

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