G
google@hb-atelier.de
Guest
SAY NO TO OLYMPIC GAMES IN 'CHINA'!
This so-called People's Republic of China, does not share the spirit
of the Olympic Games!
Don't go there - don't support another Holocaust!
Nowadays you cannot claim not to know!
See for yourself and DO something!
Copy this message where ever possible - flood Wikipedia with it - send
it to your neighbour...
CHINA's BLOODY HARVEST
Waiting times for organ transplants in China are a matter of days.
Everywhere else waiting times are measured in years
David Matas
National Post
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Is China harvesting organs of Falun Gong practitioners, killing them
in the process? A Japanese television news agency reporter and the ex-
wife of a surgeon in March made claims this was happening at Liaoning
Hospital in Sujiatin, China. Are those claims true?
The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in
China, an organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., in May asked
former Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific David Kilgour and me
to investigate these claims. We released a report in July which came
to the conclusion, to our regret and horror, that the claims were
indeed true.
The repressive and secretive nature of Chinese governance made it
difficult for us to assess the claims. We were not allowed entry to
China, though we tried. Organ harvesting is not done in public. If the
claims are true, the participants are either victims who are killed
and their bodies cremated or perpetrators who are guilty of crimes
against humanity and unlikely to confess.
We examined every avenue of proof and disproof available to us,
eighteen in all. They were:
- The Communist Party of China, for no apparent reason other than
totalitarian paranoia, sees Falun Gong as an ideological threat to its
existence. Yet, objectively, Falun Gong is just a set of exercises
with a spiritual component.
- The threat the Communist Party perceives in the Falun Gong community
has led to a policy of persecution. Persecution of the Falun Gong in
China is officially decided and decreed.
- Falun Gong practitioners are victims of extreme vilification. The
official Chinese position on Falun Gong is that it is "an evil cult."
- Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested in huge numbers. They
are detained without trial or charge until they renounce Falun Gong
beliefs.
- Falun Gong practitioners are victims of systematic torture and ill
treatment. While the claims of organ harvesting of Falun Gong
practitioners have been met with doubt, there is no doubt about this
torture.
- Many Falun Gong practitioners have formally disappeared; they are
the subject of formal disappearance complaints by family members. Many
more practitioners, in an attempt to protect their families and
communities, have not identified themselves once arrested. These
unidentified are a particularly vulnerable population.
- Traditional sources of transplants -- executed prisoners, donors,
the brain dead -- come nowhere near to accounting for the total number
of transplants in China. The only other identified source which can
explain the skyrocketing transplant numbers is Falun Gong
practitioners.
- Falun Gong practitioners in prison are systematically blood tested
and physically examined. Yet, because they are also systematically
tortured, this testing can not be motivated by concerns over their
health.
- In a few cases, between death and cremation, family members of Falun
Gong practitioners were able to see the mutilated corpses of their
loved ones. Organs had been removed.
- We interviewed the Japanese journalist and the ex-wife of the
surgeon from Sujiatin. Their testimony was credible to us. In order to
be cautious, we relied on this testimony only when it was
independently corroborated.
- We had callers phoning hospitals throughout China posing as family
members of persons who needed organ transplants. In a wide variety of
locations, those who were called asserted that Falun Gong
practitioners (reputedly healthy because of their exercise regime)
were the source of the available organs. We have recordings and
telephone bills for these calls.
- Waiting times for organ transplants in China are incredibly short, a
matter of days. Everywhere else in the world, waiting times are
measured in years.
- Chinese hospital Web sites host incriminating information
advertising organs of all sorts on short notice.
- A Falun Gong practitioner who had been in prison in China told us
that her Chinese jailers lost interest in her once they found out that
her organs had been damaged.
- China is a systematic human rights violator. The overall pattern of
violations makes it harder to dismiss any one claimed violation.
- There is huge money to be made in China from transplants. Prices
charged to foreigners, also available on a Web site, range from US
$30,000 for corneas to US$180,000 for a liver and kidney combination.
- Corruption in China is a major problem. The huge money to be made
from transplants, the lack of state controls over corruption and the
marginalization of the Falun Gong are a deadly trio.
- Until July 1 of this year, there was no law in China preventing the
selling of organs and no law requiring consent for organ harvesting.
China has a poor history of implementing laws designed to ensure
respect for human rights.
It is easy to take each element in isolation, and say that this
element or that does not prove the claim. But it is their combination
which led us to the chilling conclusion to which we came.
We are reinforced in our conclusions by the feeble response of the
Government of China. Despite all their resources and inside knowledge,
they have not provided any information to counter our report. Instead,
they have attacked us personally and, more worrisome, attacked the
Falun Gong with the very sort of verbal abuse which we have identified
as one of the reasons we believe these atrocities are occurring.
Our report has seventeen different recommendations. Virtually no
precaution one can imagine to prevent the harvesting of organs of
Falun Gong practitioners in China is currently being taken. All these
precautions should be put in place.
But there is one basic recommendation we make which must be
implemented immediately. Organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners
in China must stop.
- David Matas is a Winnipeg international human rights lawyer. The
full report is available at http://organharvestinvestigation.net.
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/report0701/report20070131.htm#_Toc160145115
BLOODY HARVEST
Considerations specific to organ harvesting
5) Technological development
Albert Einstein wrote:
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our
way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of
mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
Technological developments do not change human nature. But they do
change the ability to inflict harm.
The development of transplant surgery has done much to improve the
ability of humanity to cope with failing organs. But these
developments in transplant surgery have not changed our way of
thinking.
There is a tendency to think of any new medical development as a
benefit to humanity. That is certainly the intent of its developers.
But medical research, no matter how far advanced, comes face to face
with the same old capacity for good and evil.
More advanced techniques in transplant surgery do not mean a more
advanced Chinese political system. The Chinese Communist system
remains. Developments in transplant surgery in China fail prey to the
cruelty, the corruption, the repression which pervades China.
Advances in transplant surgery provide new means for old cadres to act
out their venality and ideology.
We do not suggest that those who developed transplant surgery should
instead have become watchmakers. We do suggest that we should not be
so naive as to think that just because transplant surgery was
developed to do good, it can do no harm.
On the contrary, the allegation made against the development of
transplant surgery in China, that it is being used to harvest organs
from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners, would be just the acting out,
in a new context, of the lesson Albert Einstein was teaching. We have
seen before that modern technologies developed for the benefit of
humanity have been perverted to inflict harm. We should not be
surprised if this has also happened to transplant
surgery.
6) Treatment of prisoners sentenced to death
Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu, speaking at a conference of
surgeons in the southern city of Guangzhou in mid November 2006
acknowledged that executed prisoners sentenced to death are a source
of organ transplants. He said: "Apart from a small portion of traffic
victims, most of the organs from cadavers are from executed
prisoners." Asia News wrote:
"'Under-the-table business must be banned,' Mr Huang said
cognizant that too often organs come from non consenting parties and
are sold for high fees to foreigners."
China has the death penalty for a large number of offences including
strictly political and economic crimes where there is no suggestion
that the accused has committed a violent act. To go from executing no
one to killing Falun Gong practitioners for their organs without their
consent is a large step. To go from executing prisoners sentenced to
death for political or economic crimes and harvesting their organs
without their consent to killing Falun Gong practitioners for their
organs without their consent is a good deal smaller step.
It would be difficult to believe that a state which killed no one,
which had no death penalty, which harvested the organs of no one else
without their consent, would harvest the organs of Falun Gong
practitioners without their consent. It is a good deal easier to
believe that a state which executes prisoners sentenced to death for
economic or political crimes and harvests their organs without their
consent would also kill Falun Gong practitioners for their organs
without their consent.
The Falun Gong constitutes a prison population who the Chinese
authorities vilify, dehumanize, depersonalize, marginalize even more
than executed prisoners sentenced to death for criminal offences.
Indeed, if one considers only the official rhetoric directed against
the two populations, it would seem that the Falun Gong would be a
target for organ harvesting even before prisoners sentenced to
death.
7) Organ donations
China has no organized system of organ donations.[8] [9] In this it is
unlike every other country engaged in organ transplant surgery.
Donations from living donors are allowed for family members.
We are told that there is a Chinese cultural aversion to organ
donation. Yet, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with essentially the same
culture, have active organ donation programs.
The absence of an organ donation system in China tells us two things.
One is that organ donations are not a plausible source for organ
transplants in China.
Because of the culture aversion to organ donation in China, even an
active organ donation system would have difficult supplying the volume
of transplants now occurring in China. But the problem is compounded
when there is not even an active effort to encourage donations.
Donations matter in other countries because donations are the primary
source of organs for transplants. We can conclude that from the
absence of a serious effort to encourage donations in China that, for
China, donations do not even matter. China has such a plethora of
organs available for transplants without donations that encouraging
organ donations becomes superfluous.
The absence of a serious effort to encourage organ donations in
combination with short waiting times for transplant surgery in China
and the large volume of transplants tells us that China is awash in
living organs for transplant; people the authorities have ready on
hand to be killed for their organs for transplants. That reality does
nothing to dispel the allegation of organ harvesting of unwilling
Falun Gong practitioners.
8) Waiting times
Hospital web sites in China advertise short waiting times for organ
transplants. Transplants of long dead donors are not viable because of
organ deterioration after death. If we take these hospital's self-
promotions at face value, they tell us that there are a large number
of people now alive who are available on demand as sources of organs.
The waiting times for organ transplants for organ recipients in China
are much lower than anywhere else. The China International
Transplantation Assistant Centre website says, "It may take only one
week to find out the suitable (kidney) donor, the maximum time being
one month..."[10]. It goes further, "If something wrong with the
donor's organ happens, the patient will have the option to be offered
another organ donor and have the operation again in one week." [11]
The site of the Oriental Organ Transplant Centre in early April, 2006,
claimed that "the average waiting time (for a suitable liver) is 2
weeks." [12] The website of the Changzheng Hospital in Shanghai says:
"...the average waiting time for a liver supply is one week among all
the patients". [13]
In contrast, the median waiting time in Canada for a kidney was 32.5
months in 2003 and in British Columbia it was even longer at 52.5
months.[14] The survival period for a kidney is between 24-48 hours
and a liver about 12 hours.[15] The presence of a large bank of
living kidney-liver "donors" must be the only way China's transplant
centres can assure such short waits to customers. The astonishingly
short waiting times advertised for perfectly-matched organs would
suggest the existence of a large bank of live prospective
'donors'.
9) Incriminating Information on Websites
Some of the material available on the websites of various transplant
centres in China before March 9, 2006 (when allegations about large-
scale organ seizures resurfaced in Canadian and other world media) is
also inculpatory. Understandably, a good deal of it has since been
removed. So these comments will refer only to sites that can still be
found at archived locations, with the site locations being identified
either in the comments or as footnotes. A surprising amount of self-
accusatory material was still available as of the final week of June,
2006 to web browsers. We list here only four examples:
(1) China International Transplantation Network Assistance Centre
Website
(http://en.zoukiishoku.com/)
(Shenyang City)
This website as of May 17, 2006 indicated in the English version (the
Mandarin one evidently disappeared after March 9) that the centre was
established in 2003 at the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical
University "...specifically for foreign friends. Most of the patients
are from all over the world." The opening sentence of the site
[16]introduction declares that "Viscera (one dictionary definition:
"soft interior organs...including the brain, lungs, heart etc")
providers can be found immediately!" On another page[17] on the same
site is this statement: "...the number of kidney transplant operations
is at least 5,000 every year all over the country. So many
transplantation operations are owing to the support of the Chinese
government. The supreme demotic court, supreme demotic law - officer,
police, judiciary, department of health and civil administration have
enacted a law together to make sure that organ donations are supported
by the government. This is unique in the world."
In the 'question and answer' section of the site are found:
"Before the living kidney transplantation, we will ensure the donor's
renal function...So it is more safe than in other countries, where the
organ is not from a living donor." [18]
. "Q: Are the organs for the pancreas transplant(ed) from brain
death (sic) (dead) patients?"
"A: Our organs do not come from brain death victims because the
state of the organ may not be good." [19]
(2)Orient Organ Transplant Centre Website
(http://www.ootc.net)
(Tianjin City)
On a page we were informed was removed in mid-April (but can still be
located as an archive 12) is the claim that from "January 2005 to now,
we have done 647 liver transplants - 12 of them done this week; the
average waiting time is 2 weeks." A chart also removed about the same
time (but archive still available[20]) indicates that from virtually a
standing start in 1998 (when it managed only 9 liver transplants) by
2005 it had completed fully 2248[21].
In contrast, according to the Canadian Organ Replacement Register 14,
the total in Canada for all kinds of organ transplants in 2004 was
1773.
(3) Jiaotong University Hospital Liver Transplant Centre Website
(http://www.firsthospital.cn/hospital/index.asp)
(Shanghai - This is #5 in the list of telephoned centres)
In a posting on April 26, 2006, [22]
(http://www.health.sohu.com/20060426/n243015842.shtml), the website
says in part: "The liver transplant cases (here) are seven in 2001, 53
cases in 2002, 105 cases in 2003, 144 cases in 2004, 147 cases in 2005
and 17 cases in January, 2006," .
(4) Website of Changzheng Hospital Organ Transplant Centre, affiliated
with No. 2 Military Medical University
(http://www.transorgan.com/)
(Shanghai)
A page was removed after March 9, 2006. (Internet Archive page is
available.[23]) It contains the following graph depicting the number
of liver transplant each year by this Centre:
In the "Liver Transplant Application" form [24], it states on the top,
"...Currently, for the liver transplant, the operation fee and the
hospitalization expense together is about 200,000 yuan ($66,667 CND),
and the average waiting time for a liver supply is one week among all
the patients in our hospital...."
10) Donor recipient interviews
For the first version of our report, we did not have time to engage in
donor recipient interviews, people who went to China from abroad for
transplants. For this version, we engaged in extensive interviews of
a number of these recipients and their family members. Summaries of
their experience are attached as an appendix to this report.
Organ transplant surgery, as described by the recipients and their
relatives, is conducted in almost total secrecy, as if it were a crime
which needed cover up. As much information as possible is withheld
from the recipients and their families. They are not told the
identity of the donors. They are never shown written consents from
the donors or their families. The identity of the operating doctor
and support staff are often not disclosed, despite requests for this
information. Recipients and their families are commonly told the time
of the operation only shortly before it occurs. Operations sometimes
occur in the middle of the night. The whole procedure is done on a
"don't ask, don't tell" basis.
When people act as if they have something to hide, it is reasonable to
conclude that they have something to hide. Since organ sourcing from
prisoners sentenced to death is widely known and even acknowledged by
the Government of China, Chinese transplant hospitals can not be
trying to hide that. It must be something else. What is it?
11) The money to be made
In China, organ transplanting is a very profitable business. We can
trace the money of the people who pay for organ transplants to
specific hospitals which do organ transplants, but we can not go
further than that. We do not know who gets the money the hospitals
receive. Are doctors and nurses engaged in criminal organ harvesting
paid exorbitant sums for their crimes? That was a question it was
impossible for us to answer, since we had no way of knowing where the
money went.
China International Transplantation Network Assistance Centre Website
(http://en.zoukiishoku.com/)
(Shenyang City)
Before its indicated removal from the site [25] in April, 2006, the
size of the profits for transplants was suggested in the following
price list:
Kidney US$62,000
Liver US$98,000-130,000
Liver-kidney US$160,000-180,000
Kidney-pancreas US$150,000
Lung US$150,000-170,000
Heart US$130,000-160,000
Cornea US$30,000
A standard way of investigating any crime allegation where money
changes hands is to follow the money trail. But for China, its closed
doors mean that following the money trail is impossible. Not knowing
where the money goes proves nothing. But it also disproves nothing,
including these allegations.
12) Chinese transplant ethics
Chinese transplant professionals are not subject to any ethical
strictures separate from the laws which govern their work. Many other
countries have self governing transplant professions with their own
disciplinary systems. Transplant professionals who violate ethical
guidelines can be ejected from their profession by their colleagues
without any state intervention.
For transplant professionals in China, we found nothing of the sort.
When it comes to transplant surgery, as long as the state does not
intervene, anything goes. There is no independent supervisory body
exercising disciplinary control over transplant professionals
independent of the state.
The Wild West system of transplant surgery in China makes it easier
for abusive practices to occur. State involvement and criminal
prosecution are inevitably less systematic than professional
discipline. Because the penalties for criminal prosecution are
greater than the penalties for professional discipline - potential
jail time rather than just barring someone from the profession -
prosecution cases are more rare than discipline cases.
The absence of a functioning transplant professional discipline system
does not mean that abuses are occurring. But it certainly makes it
more likely that they will occur.
13) Foreign transplant ethics
There are huge gaps in foreign transplant ethics. In many of the
countries from which transplant tourism to China originates,
transplant professionals have organized ethical and disciplinary
systems. But it is rare for these systems to deal specifically with
either transplant tourism or contact with Chinese transplant
professionals or transplants from executed prisoners. The watch
words here seem to be "out of sight, out of mind".
On transplant tourism, the Professional Code of Conduct of the Medical
Council of Hong Kong has two principles, in particular, worth
emphasizing. One is that, "if there is doubt" as to whether the
consent is given freely or voluntarily by the donor, the profession
should have nothing to do with the donation. And, the very least one
can say about China, in light of the fact that "almost all"
transplants come from prisoners, is that there is doubt in almost
every case whether the consent is given freely or voluntarily by the
donor.
The second is that the onus is on the foreign professionals to
ascertain the status of the Chinese donor. The foreign professional
is not acting ethically as long as he or she makes no inquiries or
only cursory ones. The foreign professional, after investigation, has
to be satisfied beyond any doubt before referring a patient to China
that consent was given freely or voluntarily by the donor.
The organ harvesting market in China, in order to thrive, requires
both a supply and a demand. The supply comes from China, from
prisoners. But the demand, in large part, in big bucks, comes from
abroad.
In an appendix, we present a critical analysis of the ethics of
contact with China on transplants. The Hong Kong principles are the
exception rather than the rule. Global professional ethics do little
or nothing to staunch the foreign demand for organs from China.
14) Chinese transplant laws
Until July 1st, 2006, the practice of selling organs in China was
legal. A law banning their sale came into effect on that date.
In China there is a huge gap between enacting legislation and
enforcing it. To take one example, the preamble of the Constitution of
China promises for China a "high level" of democracy. But, as the
Tiananmen square massacre demonstrated, China is not democratic.
Indeed from what we can tell, the law on organ transplants is not now
being enforced. Belgian Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven, in late
November 2006, called two different hospitals in Beijing pretending to
be a customer for a kidney transplant. Both hospitals offered him a
kidney on the spot for 50,000 euros.
As noted earlier, Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu in November 2006
decried the selling of organs from executed prisoners sentenced to
death saying "Under-the-table business must be banned". Yet, it was
already banned, on July 1. His speech must be taken as an official
acknowledgment that the ban is not working.
15) Foreign transplant laws
The sort of transplants in which the Chinese medical system engages is
illegal everywhere else in the world. But it is not illegal for a
foreigner in any country to go to China, benefit from a transplant
which would be illegal back home, and then return home. Foreign
transplant legislation everywhere is territorial. It does not have
extraterritorial reach.
Many other laws are global in their sweep. For instance, child sex
tourists can be prosecuted not just in the country where they have sex
with children, but, in many countries, back home as well. This sort
of legislation does not exist for transplant tourists who pay for
organ transplants without bothering to determine whether the organ
donor has consented.
There have been some legislative initiatives. For instance, Belgian
Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven is proposing an extraterritorial
criminal law which would penalize transplant tourists who purchase
organs abroad where the donors are prisoners or missing persons. But
these legislative proposals are still in an early stage.
16) Travel Advisories
Many states have travel advisories, warning their citizens of the
perils in travel to one country to another. The advisories often warn
of political violence, or even weather related problems. But no
government has posted a travel advisory about organ transplants in
China, warning its citizens that, in the words of The Transplantation
Society, "almost all" organs in China come from prisoners.
Some, and we would hope, many would-be recipients of organ transplants
would hesitate to go to China for transplants if they knew that their
organs were coming from people who were non-consenting prisoners. But
right now there is no systematic communication to would be recipients
of the source of organs in China, either through governments or the
medical profession
For instance, the Canadian travel advisory for China, posted on the
Foreign Affairs web site gives extensive information, almost 2,600
words, and has a section about health. But organ transplants are not
mentioned.
17) Pharmaceuticals
Organ transplantation surgery relies on anti-rejection drugs. China
imports these drugs from the major pharmaceutical companies.
Transplant surgery used to require both tissue and blood type matching
for the transplant to succeed. The development of transplant anti-
rejection drugs has allowed for transplant surgery to circumvent
tissue matching. It is possible, with heavy use of anti-rejection
drugs, to transplant from a donor to a recipient whose tissues do not
match. Only blood type matching is essential. Tissue matching is
preferable, to avoid heavy reliance on anti-rejection drugs, but no
longer essential. The Chinese medical system relies heavily on anti-
rejection drugs.
International pharmaceutical companies behave towards the Chinese
transplantation system the same way everyone else does. They ask no
questions. They have no knowledge whether their drugs are being used
in recipients who received organs from involuntary donor prisoners or
not.
Many countries have export control acts, forbidding the export of some
products altogether and requiring state permission for the export of
other products. But no state, to our knowledge, prohibits export to
China of anti-rejection drugs used for organ transplant patients.
For instance, the Canadian Export and Import Permits Act provides:
"No person shall export or attempt to export any goods
included in an Export Control List or any goods to any country
included in an Area Control List except under the authority of and in
accordance with an export permit issued under this Act."[26]
But anti-rejection drugs for transplants are not included in the Area
Control list for China.
18) Foreign state funding for care
Some state administered health plans pay for health care abroad in the
amount that would be paid if the care were administered in the home
country. Where that happens, there is not, to our knowledge, in any
country a prohibition of payment where the patient obtains an organ
transplant in China.
Transplant tourists need aftercare in their home country. They
continue to need prescription and administration of anti-rejection
drugs. States which provide government funding for health services
typically provide funding for this sort of after care.
Again here, to the funders how the organ recipient got the organ is a
matter of indifference. The fact that the organ may have came from an
unconsenting prisoner in China who was killed for the organ is simply
not relevant to foreign state funding of aftercare for the recipient.
This so-called People's Republic of China, does not share the spirit
of the Olympic Games!
Don't go there - don't support another Holocaust!
Nowadays you cannot claim not to know!
See for yourself and DO something!
Copy this message where ever possible - flood Wikipedia with it - send
it to your neighbour...
CHINA's BLOODY HARVEST
Waiting times for organ transplants in China are a matter of days.
Everywhere else waiting times are measured in years
David Matas
National Post
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Is China harvesting organs of Falun Gong practitioners, killing them
in the process? A Japanese television news agency reporter and the ex-
wife of a surgeon in March made claims this was happening at Liaoning
Hospital in Sujiatin, China. Are those claims true?
The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in
China, an organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., in May asked
former Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific David Kilgour and me
to investigate these claims. We released a report in July which came
to the conclusion, to our regret and horror, that the claims were
indeed true.
The repressive and secretive nature of Chinese governance made it
difficult for us to assess the claims. We were not allowed entry to
China, though we tried. Organ harvesting is not done in public. If the
claims are true, the participants are either victims who are killed
and their bodies cremated or perpetrators who are guilty of crimes
against humanity and unlikely to confess.
We examined every avenue of proof and disproof available to us,
eighteen in all. They were:
- The Communist Party of China, for no apparent reason other than
totalitarian paranoia, sees Falun Gong as an ideological threat to its
existence. Yet, objectively, Falun Gong is just a set of exercises
with a spiritual component.
- The threat the Communist Party perceives in the Falun Gong community
has led to a policy of persecution. Persecution of the Falun Gong in
China is officially decided and decreed.
- Falun Gong practitioners are victims of extreme vilification. The
official Chinese position on Falun Gong is that it is "an evil cult."
- Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested in huge numbers. They
are detained without trial or charge until they renounce Falun Gong
beliefs.
- Falun Gong practitioners are victims of systematic torture and ill
treatment. While the claims of organ harvesting of Falun Gong
practitioners have been met with doubt, there is no doubt about this
torture.
- Many Falun Gong practitioners have formally disappeared; they are
the subject of formal disappearance complaints by family members. Many
more practitioners, in an attempt to protect their families and
communities, have not identified themselves once arrested. These
unidentified are a particularly vulnerable population.
- Traditional sources of transplants -- executed prisoners, donors,
the brain dead -- come nowhere near to accounting for the total number
of transplants in China. The only other identified source which can
explain the skyrocketing transplant numbers is Falun Gong
practitioners.
- Falun Gong practitioners in prison are systematically blood tested
and physically examined. Yet, because they are also systematically
tortured, this testing can not be motivated by concerns over their
health.
- In a few cases, between death and cremation, family members of Falun
Gong practitioners were able to see the mutilated corpses of their
loved ones. Organs had been removed.
- We interviewed the Japanese journalist and the ex-wife of the
surgeon from Sujiatin. Their testimony was credible to us. In order to
be cautious, we relied on this testimony only when it was
independently corroborated.
- We had callers phoning hospitals throughout China posing as family
members of persons who needed organ transplants. In a wide variety of
locations, those who were called asserted that Falun Gong
practitioners (reputedly healthy because of their exercise regime)
were the source of the available organs. We have recordings and
telephone bills for these calls.
- Waiting times for organ transplants in China are incredibly short, a
matter of days. Everywhere else in the world, waiting times are
measured in years.
- Chinese hospital Web sites host incriminating information
advertising organs of all sorts on short notice.
- A Falun Gong practitioner who had been in prison in China told us
that her Chinese jailers lost interest in her once they found out that
her organs had been damaged.
- China is a systematic human rights violator. The overall pattern of
violations makes it harder to dismiss any one claimed violation.
- There is huge money to be made in China from transplants. Prices
charged to foreigners, also available on a Web site, range from US
$30,000 for corneas to US$180,000 for a liver and kidney combination.
- Corruption in China is a major problem. The huge money to be made
from transplants, the lack of state controls over corruption and the
marginalization of the Falun Gong are a deadly trio.
- Until July 1 of this year, there was no law in China preventing the
selling of organs and no law requiring consent for organ harvesting.
China has a poor history of implementing laws designed to ensure
respect for human rights.
It is easy to take each element in isolation, and say that this
element or that does not prove the claim. But it is their combination
which led us to the chilling conclusion to which we came.
We are reinforced in our conclusions by the feeble response of the
Government of China. Despite all their resources and inside knowledge,
they have not provided any information to counter our report. Instead,
they have attacked us personally and, more worrisome, attacked the
Falun Gong with the very sort of verbal abuse which we have identified
as one of the reasons we believe these atrocities are occurring.
Our report has seventeen different recommendations. Virtually no
precaution one can imagine to prevent the harvesting of organs of
Falun Gong practitioners in China is currently being taken. All these
precautions should be put in place.
But there is one basic recommendation we make which must be
implemented immediately. Organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners
in China must stop.
- David Matas is a Winnipeg international human rights lawyer. The
full report is available at http://organharvestinvestigation.net.
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/report0701/report20070131.htm#_Toc160145115
BLOODY HARVEST
Considerations specific to organ harvesting
5) Technological development
Albert Einstein wrote:
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our
way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of
mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
Technological developments do not change human nature. But they do
change the ability to inflict harm.
The development of transplant surgery has done much to improve the
ability of humanity to cope with failing organs. But these
developments in transplant surgery have not changed our way of
thinking.
There is a tendency to think of any new medical development as a
benefit to humanity. That is certainly the intent of its developers.
But medical research, no matter how far advanced, comes face to face
with the same old capacity for good and evil.
More advanced techniques in transplant surgery do not mean a more
advanced Chinese political system. The Chinese Communist system
remains. Developments in transplant surgery in China fail prey to the
cruelty, the corruption, the repression which pervades China.
Advances in transplant surgery provide new means for old cadres to act
out their venality and ideology.
We do not suggest that those who developed transplant surgery should
instead have become watchmakers. We do suggest that we should not be
so naive as to think that just because transplant surgery was
developed to do good, it can do no harm.
On the contrary, the allegation made against the development of
transplant surgery in China, that it is being used to harvest organs
from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners, would be just the acting out,
in a new context, of the lesson Albert Einstein was teaching. We have
seen before that modern technologies developed for the benefit of
humanity have been perverted to inflict harm. We should not be
surprised if this has also happened to transplant
surgery.
6) Treatment of prisoners sentenced to death
Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu, speaking at a conference of
surgeons in the southern city of Guangzhou in mid November 2006
acknowledged that executed prisoners sentenced to death are a source
of organ transplants. He said: "Apart from a small portion of traffic
victims, most of the organs from cadavers are from executed
prisoners." Asia News wrote:
"'Under-the-table business must be banned,' Mr Huang said
cognizant that too often organs come from non consenting parties and
are sold for high fees to foreigners."
China has the death penalty for a large number of offences including
strictly political and economic crimes where there is no suggestion
that the accused has committed a violent act. To go from executing no
one to killing Falun Gong practitioners for their organs without their
consent is a large step. To go from executing prisoners sentenced to
death for political or economic crimes and harvesting their organs
without their consent to killing Falun Gong practitioners for their
organs without their consent is a good deal smaller step.
It would be difficult to believe that a state which killed no one,
which had no death penalty, which harvested the organs of no one else
without their consent, would harvest the organs of Falun Gong
practitioners without their consent. It is a good deal easier to
believe that a state which executes prisoners sentenced to death for
economic or political crimes and harvests their organs without their
consent would also kill Falun Gong practitioners for their organs
without their consent.
The Falun Gong constitutes a prison population who the Chinese
authorities vilify, dehumanize, depersonalize, marginalize even more
than executed prisoners sentenced to death for criminal offences.
Indeed, if one considers only the official rhetoric directed against
the two populations, it would seem that the Falun Gong would be a
target for organ harvesting even before prisoners sentenced to
death.
7) Organ donations
China has no organized system of organ donations.[8] [9] In this it is
unlike every other country engaged in organ transplant surgery.
Donations from living donors are allowed for family members.
We are told that there is a Chinese cultural aversion to organ
donation. Yet, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with essentially the same
culture, have active organ donation programs.
The absence of an organ donation system in China tells us two things.
One is that organ donations are not a plausible source for organ
transplants in China.
Because of the culture aversion to organ donation in China, even an
active organ donation system would have difficult supplying the volume
of transplants now occurring in China. But the problem is compounded
when there is not even an active effort to encourage donations.
Donations matter in other countries because donations are the primary
source of organs for transplants. We can conclude that from the
absence of a serious effort to encourage donations in China that, for
China, donations do not even matter. China has such a plethora of
organs available for transplants without donations that encouraging
organ donations becomes superfluous.
The absence of a serious effort to encourage organ donations in
combination with short waiting times for transplant surgery in China
and the large volume of transplants tells us that China is awash in
living organs for transplant; people the authorities have ready on
hand to be killed for their organs for transplants. That reality does
nothing to dispel the allegation of organ harvesting of unwilling
Falun Gong practitioners.
8) Waiting times
Hospital web sites in China advertise short waiting times for organ
transplants. Transplants of long dead donors are not viable because of
organ deterioration after death. If we take these hospital's self-
promotions at face value, they tell us that there are a large number
of people now alive who are available on demand as sources of organs.
The waiting times for organ transplants for organ recipients in China
are much lower than anywhere else. The China International
Transplantation Assistant Centre website says, "It may take only one
week to find out the suitable (kidney) donor, the maximum time being
one month..."[10]. It goes further, "If something wrong with the
donor's organ happens, the patient will have the option to be offered
another organ donor and have the operation again in one week." [11]
The site of the Oriental Organ Transplant Centre in early April, 2006,
claimed that "the average waiting time (for a suitable liver) is 2
weeks." [12] The website of the Changzheng Hospital in Shanghai says:
"...the average waiting time for a liver supply is one week among all
the patients". [13]
In contrast, the median waiting time in Canada for a kidney was 32.5
months in 2003 and in British Columbia it was even longer at 52.5
months.[14] The survival period for a kidney is between 24-48 hours
and a liver about 12 hours.[15] The presence of a large bank of
living kidney-liver "donors" must be the only way China's transplant
centres can assure such short waits to customers. The astonishingly
short waiting times advertised for perfectly-matched organs would
suggest the existence of a large bank of live prospective
'donors'.
9) Incriminating Information on Websites
Some of the material available on the websites of various transplant
centres in China before March 9, 2006 (when allegations about large-
scale organ seizures resurfaced in Canadian and other world media) is
also inculpatory. Understandably, a good deal of it has since been
removed. So these comments will refer only to sites that can still be
found at archived locations, with the site locations being identified
either in the comments or as footnotes. A surprising amount of self-
accusatory material was still available as of the final week of June,
2006 to web browsers. We list here only four examples:
(1) China International Transplantation Network Assistance Centre
Website
(http://en.zoukiishoku.com/)
(Shenyang City)
This website as of May 17, 2006 indicated in the English version (the
Mandarin one evidently disappeared after March 9) that the centre was
established in 2003 at the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical
University "...specifically for foreign friends. Most of the patients
are from all over the world." The opening sentence of the site
[16]introduction declares that "Viscera (one dictionary definition:
"soft interior organs...including the brain, lungs, heart etc")
providers can be found immediately!" On another page[17] on the same
site is this statement: "...the number of kidney transplant operations
is at least 5,000 every year all over the country. So many
transplantation operations are owing to the support of the Chinese
government. The supreme demotic court, supreme demotic law - officer,
police, judiciary, department of health and civil administration have
enacted a law together to make sure that organ donations are supported
by the government. This is unique in the world."
In the 'question and answer' section of the site are found:
"Before the living kidney transplantation, we will ensure the donor's
renal function...So it is more safe than in other countries, where the
organ is not from a living donor." [18]
. "Q: Are the organs for the pancreas transplant(ed) from brain
death (sic) (dead) patients?"
"A: Our organs do not come from brain death victims because the
state of the organ may not be good." [19]
(2)Orient Organ Transplant Centre Website
(http://www.ootc.net)
(Tianjin City)
On a page we were informed was removed in mid-April (but can still be
located as an archive 12) is the claim that from "January 2005 to now,
we have done 647 liver transplants - 12 of them done this week; the
average waiting time is 2 weeks." A chart also removed about the same
time (but archive still available[20]) indicates that from virtually a
standing start in 1998 (when it managed only 9 liver transplants) by
2005 it had completed fully 2248[21].
In contrast, according to the Canadian Organ Replacement Register 14,
the total in Canada for all kinds of organ transplants in 2004 was
1773.
(3) Jiaotong University Hospital Liver Transplant Centre Website
(http://www.firsthospital.cn/hospital/index.asp)
(Shanghai - This is #5 in the list of telephoned centres)
In a posting on April 26, 2006, [22]
(http://www.health.sohu.com/20060426/n243015842.shtml), the website
says in part: "The liver transplant cases (here) are seven in 2001, 53
cases in 2002, 105 cases in 2003, 144 cases in 2004, 147 cases in 2005
and 17 cases in January, 2006," .
(4) Website of Changzheng Hospital Organ Transplant Centre, affiliated
with No. 2 Military Medical University
(http://www.transorgan.com/)
(Shanghai)
A page was removed after March 9, 2006. (Internet Archive page is
available.[23]) It contains the following graph depicting the number
of liver transplant each year by this Centre:
In the "Liver Transplant Application" form [24], it states on the top,
"...Currently, for the liver transplant, the operation fee and the
hospitalization expense together is about 200,000 yuan ($66,667 CND),
and the average waiting time for a liver supply is one week among all
the patients in our hospital...."
10) Donor recipient interviews
For the first version of our report, we did not have time to engage in
donor recipient interviews, people who went to China from abroad for
transplants. For this version, we engaged in extensive interviews of
a number of these recipients and their family members. Summaries of
their experience are attached as an appendix to this report.
Organ transplant surgery, as described by the recipients and their
relatives, is conducted in almost total secrecy, as if it were a crime
which needed cover up. As much information as possible is withheld
from the recipients and their families. They are not told the
identity of the donors. They are never shown written consents from
the donors or their families. The identity of the operating doctor
and support staff are often not disclosed, despite requests for this
information. Recipients and their families are commonly told the time
of the operation only shortly before it occurs. Operations sometimes
occur in the middle of the night. The whole procedure is done on a
"don't ask, don't tell" basis.
When people act as if they have something to hide, it is reasonable to
conclude that they have something to hide. Since organ sourcing from
prisoners sentenced to death is widely known and even acknowledged by
the Government of China, Chinese transplant hospitals can not be
trying to hide that. It must be something else. What is it?
11) The money to be made
In China, organ transplanting is a very profitable business. We can
trace the money of the people who pay for organ transplants to
specific hospitals which do organ transplants, but we can not go
further than that. We do not know who gets the money the hospitals
receive. Are doctors and nurses engaged in criminal organ harvesting
paid exorbitant sums for their crimes? That was a question it was
impossible for us to answer, since we had no way of knowing where the
money went.
China International Transplantation Network Assistance Centre Website
(http://en.zoukiishoku.com/)
(Shenyang City)
Before its indicated removal from the site [25] in April, 2006, the
size of the profits for transplants was suggested in the following
price list:
Kidney US$62,000
Liver US$98,000-130,000
Liver-kidney US$160,000-180,000
Kidney-pancreas US$150,000
Lung US$150,000-170,000
Heart US$130,000-160,000
Cornea US$30,000
A standard way of investigating any crime allegation where money
changes hands is to follow the money trail. But for China, its closed
doors mean that following the money trail is impossible. Not knowing
where the money goes proves nothing. But it also disproves nothing,
including these allegations.
12) Chinese transplant ethics
Chinese transplant professionals are not subject to any ethical
strictures separate from the laws which govern their work. Many other
countries have self governing transplant professions with their own
disciplinary systems. Transplant professionals who violate ethical
guidelines can be ejected from their profession by their colleagues
without any state intervention.
For transplant professionals in China, we found nothing of the sort.
When it comes to transplant surgery, as long as the state does not
intervene, anything goes. There is no independent supervisory body
exercising disciplinary control over transplant professionals
independent of the state.
The Wild West system of transplant surgery in China makes it easier
for abusive practices to occur. State involvement and criminal
prosecution are inevitably less systematic than professional
discipline. Because the penalties for criminal prosecution are
greater than the penalties for professional discipline - potential
jail time rather than just barring someone from the profession -
prosecution cases are more rare than discipline cases.
The absence of a functioning transplant professional discipline system
does not mean that abuses are occurring. But it certainly makes it
more likely that they will occur.
13) Foreign transplant ethics
There are huge gaps in foreign transplant ethics. In many of the
countries from which transplant tourism to China originates,
transplant professionals have organized ethical and disciplinary
systems. But it is rare for these systems to deal specifically with
either transplant tourism or contact with Chinese transplant
professionals or transplants from executed prisoners. The watch
words here seem to be "out of sight, out of mind".
On transplant tourism, the Professional Code of Conduct of the Medical
Council of Hong Kong has two principles, in particular, worth
emphasizing. One is that, "if there is doubt" as to whether the
consent is given freely or voluntarily by the donor, the profession
should have nothing to do with the donation. And, the very least one
can say about China, in light of the fact that "almost all"
transplants come from prisoners, is that there is doubt in almost
every case whether the consent is given freely or voluntarily by the
donor.
The second is that the onus is on the foreign professionals to
ascertain the status of the Chinese donor. The foreign professional
is not acting ethically as long as he or she makes no inquiries or
only cursory ones. The foreign professional, after investigation, has
to be satisfied beyond any doubt before referring a patient to China
that consent was given freely or voluntarily by the donor.
The organ harvesting market in China, in order to thrive, requires
both a supply and a demand. The supply comes from China, from
prisoners. But the demand, in large part, in big bucks, comes from
abroad.
In an appendix, we present a critical analysis of the ethics of
contact with China on transplants. The Hong Kong principles are the
exception rather than the rule. Global professional ethics do little
or nothing to staunch the foreign demand for organs from China.
14) Chinese transplant laws
Until July 1st, 2006, the practice of selling organs in China was
legal. A law banning their sale came into effect on that date.
In China there is a huge gap between enacting legislation and
enforcing it. To take one example, the preamble of the Constitution of
China promises for China a "high level" of democracy. But, as the
Tiananmen square massacre demonstrated, China is not democratic.
Indeed from what we can tell, the law on organ transplants is not now
being enforced. Belgian Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven, in late
November 2006, called two different hospitals in Beijing pretending to
be a customer for a kidney transplant. Both hospitals offered him a
kidney on the spot for 50,000 euros.
As noted earlier, Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu in November 2006
decried the selling of organs from executed prisoners sentenced to
death saying "Under-the-table business must be banned". Yet, it was
already banned, on July 1. His speech must be taken as an official
acknowledgment that the ban is not working.
15) Foreign transplant laws
The sort of transplants in which the Chinese medical system engages is
illegal everywhere else in the world. But it is not illegal for a
foreigner in any country to go to China, benefit from a transplant
which would be illegal back home, and then return home. Foreign
transplant legislation everywhere is territorial. It does not have
extraterritorial reach.
Many other laws are global in their sweep. For instance, child sex
tourists can be prosecuted not just in the country where they have sex
with children, but, in many countries, back home as well. This sort
of legislation does not exist for transplant tourists who pay for
organ transplants without bothering to determine whether the organ
donor has consented.
There have been some legislative initiatives. For instance, Belgian
Senator Patrik Vankrunkelsven is proposing an extraterritorial
criminal law which would penalize transplant tourists who purchase
organs abroad where the donors are prisoners or missing persons. But
these legislative proposals are still in an early stage.
16) Travel Advisories
Many states have travel advisories, warning their citizens of the
perils in travel to one country to another. The advisories often warn
of political violence, or even weather related problems. But no
government has posted a travel advisory about organ transplants in
China, warning its citizens that, in the words of The Transplantation
Society, "almost all" organs in China come from prisoners.
Some, and we would hope, many would-be recipients of organ transplants
would hesitate to go to China for transplants if they knew that their
organs were coming from people who were non-consenting prisoners. But
right now there is no systematic communication to would be recipients
of the source of organs in China, either through governments or the
medical profession
For instance, the Canadian travel advisory for China, posted on the
Foreign Affairs web site gives extensive information, almost 2,600
words, and has a section about health. But organ transplants are not
mentioned.
17) Pharmaceuticals
Organ transplantation surgery relies on anti-rejection drugs. China
imports these drugs from the major pharmaceutical companies.
Transplant surgery used to require both tissue and blood type matching
for the transplant to succeed. The development of transplant anti-
rejection drugs has allowed for transplant surgery to circumvent
tissue matching. It is possible, with heavy use of anti-rejection
drugs, to transplant from a donor to a recipient whose tissues do not
match. Only blood type matching is essential. Tissue matching is
preferable, to avoid heavy reliance on anti-rejection drugs, but no
longer essential. The Chinese medical system relies heavily on anti-
rejection drugs.
International pharmaceutical companies behave towards the Chinese
transplantation system the same way everyone else does. They ask no
questions. They have no knowledge whether their drugs are being used
in recipients who received organs from involuntary donor prisoners or
not.
Many countries have export control acts, forbidding the export of some
products altogether and requiring state permission for the export of
other products. But no state, to our knowledge, prohibits export to
China of anti-rejection drugs used for organ transplant patients.
For instance, the Canadian Export and Import Permits Act provides:
"No person shall export or attempt to export any goods
included in an Export Control List or any goods to any country
included in an Area Control List except under the authority of and in
accordance with an export permit issued under this Act."[26]
But anti-rejection drugs for transplants are not included in the Area
Control list for China.
18) Foreign state funding for care
Some state administered health plans pay for health care abroad in the
amount that would be paid if the care were administered in the home
country. Where that happens, there is not, to our knowledge, in any
country a prohibition of payment where the patient obtains an organ
transplant in China.
Transplant tourists need aftercare in their home country. They
continue to need prescription and administration of anti-rejection
drugs. States which provide government funding for health services
typically provide funding for this sort of after care.
Again here, to the funders how the organ recipient got the organ is a
matter of indifference. The fact that the organ may have came from an
unconsenting prisoner in China who was killed for the organ is simply
not relevant to foreign state funding of aftercare for the recipient.