ABSTRACT
This version contrasts somewhat with organ theft rumors that circulate globally, particularly in the Third World. In these versions, organ thieves are said to leave their victims, often street children, to die after stealing their hearts, kidneys, livers, or eyes.1 In a manner similar to that of the snuff film rumor in the First World, the Third World organ theft is a semiconstructed social problem. Reports of organ theft routinely surface in Latin America and Asia, promote investigations, but are followed by lesspublicized findings of evidence that such practices did not occur. International media sources have given these allegations credibility on occasion, ignoring follow-up reports (Radford, 1999:36-38; Genge 2000:64). Like the snuff film legend, the Third World organ theft rumors appear as explanations (for missing children or foreign adoptions, for example) rather than narratives.2 By this I mean that the form of recounting need not adhere to a discrete narrative form as described in the above paragraph, with a set scene, event, and denouement. In the case of Third World organ theft rumors, the allegation is offered as an explanation for children gone missing, or for the presence of white foreigners, or for general ill-health in children.
