FAITH UNDER FIRE
Exposed! China's
organ-on-demand transplants
'Bloody Harvest' says
prisoners kept healthy until paying customer arrives
A new report called
"Bloody Harvest" documents China's "anything goes" transplant industry
where a cornea is available to anyone with $30,000 and people are kept
as prisoners until their organs are needed, when they are executed by a
doctor's needle just as soon as the cash hits the hospital accounting
office.
The report from
David Matas, an international human rights lawyer, and David Kilgour,
the former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, was just
released and updates previous documents alleging the existence of the
billion dollar industry.
The new report,
taken cumulatively, provides the proof, Kilgour told WND.
"We've talked to a
lot of people who received organs, people who managed to get out [of
China] by the skin of their teeth. We talked to a lady beaten up so
badly she heard a doctor say she was going to die and her organs would
be no good. We've looked at the web sites offering organs. We think we
now have overwhelming evidence for any fair-minded or reasonable
person," he said.
"Every single item
points in the same direction, and nothing points in the direction of
innocence," he said.
Web sites have
posted prices, in U.S. dollars, of $150,000 for a kidney or pancreas,
$150,000-$170,000 for a lung, and $130,000-$160,000 for a heart, and
those same sites suggest the maximum wait for a liver available for
transplant would be two weeks, although the same wait period in British
Columbia was 52 months.
"The astonishingly
short waiting times advertised for perfectly-matched organs would
suggest the existence of a large bank of live prospective 'donors,'"
the report said.
Some of the most
damning evidence came from several individuals who have fled the
industry. One woman testified her husband, a surgeon, had removed the
corneas from an estimated 2,000 people who, at that point, still were
alive. But they then were operated on by other surgeons to remove other
organs, and the bodies then cremated.
The money trail was
tracked from the patients to the hospital, but it remained unclear
whether the hospital, the government, or the surgeons were benefiting
the most, the report said. But it concluded that the magnitude of the
atrocities goes beyond even what Hitler pursued in his attempt to
eradicate Jews and other groups of people, he said.
"This is just about
at the limit of the human imagination, some people would say it's
beyond. We avoid direct comparisons, because it really is unique. Even
the Nazis didn't try to do this," he said.
He characterizes it
as "carnivore capitalism" where nothing matters but the money. The
report lists new evidence showing that hospitals are telling
potential transplant recipients that they have live organs awaiting
delivery and there have been tens of thousands of transplant surgeries
performed in the past few years – with no other available source of
organs.
China's human
rights record is atrocious, the report said, with more deaths
attributable to its Communist government than to Stalin and Hitler
combined. The nation routinely violates the rights of Christians,
democracy advocates, human rights advocates and others, including using
detention, torture and execution.
But the targets for
the burgeoning industry at this point are mostly members of a religious
sect called Falun Gong. That's a belief system that was assembled in
the early 1990s by Li Hongzhi and incorporates ideas from Buddhism and
Taoism. It's generally seen as a peaceful movement, but China
government officials have labeled it a dangerous cult and banned it.
But in a social
atmosphere that tolerates only what officials decide they want to
allow, there is no accountability for hospitals or physicians who are
constantly short of funding, and there is zero tolerance for dissent,
the nation's transplant industry has exploded because there has been no
barrier to marketing – and selling – the organs of "enemies of the
state."
"Once a customer
arrives into China, somebody's killed for the organ, whether it's a
prisoner sentenced to death or a Falun Gong practitioner, and they just
have this huge supply of people in jail waiting to be killed for organ
donations," Matas told reporters at a recent news conference.
Liver transplants,
counted at only 22 before 1999, multiplied to 500 just last year. And
while China has admitted "harvesting" the organs of inmates executed
for capital crimes, the number of those executions has remained about
the same – in the 1,600 to 1,700 range – for a number of years.
However, while reports that are available to the public show there were
about 30,000 transplant surgeries in China prior to 1999, that total
rocketed to 90,000 by the end of 2005.
Those 60,000 organ
transplant surgeries during the years 2000-2005 each needed a donor
organ, and historically in China the numbers show only a fraction of
all transplants are provided by living donors, such as in kidney cases,
or a body made available voluntarily following a traffic accident or
other circumstances.
"There is no
indication of a significant increase in … these categories in recent
years. Presumably, the identified sources of organ transplants which
produced 18,500 organ transplants in the six-year period 1994 to 1999
produced the same number of organs for transplants in the next six-year
period 2000 to 2005," the report said.
"That means that
the source of 41,500 transplants for the six-year period 2000 to 2005
is unexplained," the report said.
Some of the
explanation comes from a volunteer who testified to the authors about
calling 80 hospitals in China, asking about transplants. Ten locations
admitted using "live" Falun Gong practitioners as organ suppliers.
One hospital
official was asked about the organs for transplant. "…And it was from
healthy Falun Gong practitioners…?"
"Correct.
We
would
choose
the
good
ones
because
we assure the quality in our
operation," the hospital official said.
"That means you choose the organs yourself?"
"Correct…"
"Usually, how old is the organ supplier?"
"Usually in their thirties."
"What if the chosen one doesn't want to have
blood drawn?"
"He will for sure let us do it."
"How?"
"They will for sure find a way. What do you
worry about? These kinds of things should not be of any concern to you.
They have their procedures."
"Does the person know that his organ will be
removed?"
"No."
The researchers,
both from Canada, noted that there is no doubt Canadians are taking
part in "organ tourism," which is traveling to China for a transplant.
Confirmations have come in from hospitals in Toronto, Vancouver and
Calgary that such trips were taking place.
Patients from the
United States and other affluent countries, also, undoubtedly, are
taking part in the industry, the report noted.
Kilgour told WND
that the report reveals that Falun Gong practitioners, probably tens of
thousands, are held in detention camps while, during their lives, they
assemble products for export. But they are blood-typed and given
various tests regularly.
Then there's a
computer matchup of tissue. "His or her day comes up, somebody's
waiting in a hospital in Shanghai, and you can die that day. The
patient flies back to America with a new kidney," he said.
Patients routinely
are told they are getting organs from executed prisoners who
volunteered for the donation. The description of "executed prisoner,"
technically, is true, he said, but the caveat is that the "prisoners"
never commited – or were convicted – of any crime.
The report suggests
the rest of the world could help by preventing patients from traveling
to China for a transplant where neither the donor nor the family have
consented, stopping funding for after-care for patients who have
commercial transplants abroad, stop training of doctors who will return
to China and join the transplant industry and ban shipping
anti-rejection drugs and other necessities for transplants to China.
"We believe that
there has been and continues today to be large-scale organ seizures
from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners," they said in the report.
Kilgour
earlier
told
the
Epoch
Times that the 2008 Olympic Games, awarded
by the International Olympic Committee to China, also should be used as
a lever to stop the activity
Chinese officials
have admitted "harvesting" organs from "executed prisoners," but that
admission did not come until 2005, and the report authors say it might
have been made to divert attention away from the industry of killing
innocent sect members for their organs.
The authors said
the report on the study, which was done at the request of the Coalition
to Investigation the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China, a
non-governmental organization in Washington and Ottawa, also is
available at www.organharvestinvestigation.net.
Consultant struck off for actively ending
patient's life
A
hospital consultant investigated over the deaths of dozens of patients
was struck off the medical register yesterday for taking "active
measures" to end the life of a patient against his family's wishes.
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