Organ Transplantation in China

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/china-prisoners-organ-transplants_n_3759669.html

At March 7^th 2013, German magazine called ‘Die Zeit’ published the article about the unethical organ trade system in China, exposing the fact that body organs are taken from executed prisoners in China and then implanted in patients from the west. The article was read by many readers and created the stir in Germany.

Beijing attorney Han Bing published his latest blog about the prisoner who was sentenced to death suddenly on December 6, 2012. Even though the highest Chinese court, a few days before, had ordered the case to be reexamined, the prisoner was executed. It is because the prisoner’s body organs were needed and had to be in the best possible condition. “These unscrupulous judges and doctors are transforming a hospital into a place of execution – a marketplace for the organ trade,” Han wrote. Han’s account was forwarded more than 18,000 times within a single day, and more than 5,600 people posted comments. Then the blog was erased.

According to ‘Die Zeit,’ prisoners die just in time to permit another person to continue living. This is possible in the Chinese transplant system. Also, the magazine exposed that China had done organ trade for a long time.

The number of persons executed in China is estimated that approximately 4,000 per year. They are killed by a bullet to the head or by lethal injection. To inject lethal without damaging the organs, the research is conducted in China. In 2006, Wang Lijun awarded Guanghua Innovation Special Contribution Award for his studies of execution methods. Wang Lijun was the former chief of psychological-forensic research institute for several years, and recently received a long prison sentence following a political scandal. The citation stated that he had developed a “brand-new protective fluid” for organs, ensuring successful transplants from executed prisoners despite lethal injection. Wang said he had conducted his execution experiments “on several thousand persons” and he called the experience “heart-wrenching.”

Western consultants to the Chinese government claim to be encouraging change in transplant practices, while at the same time they pursue business interests in China. While China earns revenues by selling organs to the western clients, China cooperates with western pharmaceutical industries. Pharmaceutical firms supply the Chinese market with anti-rejection drugs, and conduct research on transplantation practices that in all likelihood have come from the use of organs from executed prisoners. Research records list nine clinical studies in China with about 1,200 transplant patients, with whom Wyeth and Pfizer from the USA, Novartis and Roche from Switzerland, and Astellas from Japan have all tested their transplant drugs. Altogether the corporations have cooperated with 20 hospitals in China for theses studies. Also, doctors are receiving the skills that allow them to transplant organs from executed prisoners in China.