Chinese organ trade criticized

DEBORAH L. SHELTON
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Posted on Fri, Aug. 25, 2006

ST. LOUIS - In 2001, Huagui Li was arrested in southern China for handing
out banned literature.

For that crime, she could have become one of thousands of Chinese reportedly
rounded up every year and killed for their organs.

She says she was tortured repeatedly at a women's labor camp, and one day
with about 500 other detainees, was taken to a hospital for a physical
examination that included extensive medical tests.

Her high blood pressure probably saved her life, she says. It made her
ineligible to become an organ donor. Her jailers later released her.

Li, 62, a mathematics teacher for 30 years in China, now lives with her son
and daughter-in-law in Missouri.

As transplant lists grow longer, more Americans are traveling to China for
organs. The trend alarms ethicists and U.S. doctors concerned about the
human rights of donors and the health and safety of recipients.

China has long depended on executed prisoners for organs. Now, human rights
groups and others say the communist government is harvesting organs from
living prisoners, targeting followers of Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline
which Li practices.

Li's daughter-in-law, Yi Liu, translated for her as she told her story last
week at the Ethical Society of St. Louis.

"As we speak now," she said, bursting into tears, "somewhere on the other
side of the Earth, someone is put on a table and their organs are being
removed."

It's unclear how many Americans go overseas for transplants, but anecdotal
reports indicate the numbers are rising.

As of last Friday, almost 93,000 Americans were waiting for an organ
transplant. During the first five months of this year, about 12,000
transplants were performed in the United States.

Dr. Jeffrey Crippin, president of the American Society of Transplantation,
said fear of dying on the waiting list is leading to "desperate measures by
desperate people." Crippin is medical director of the liver transplant
program at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish
Hospital.

Chinese transplant services seeking foreigners with money are easy to find
on the Internet.

New Life Global Medical Service Ltd. tells potential patients not to ask
where donated organs come from.

"If you are simply seeking political correctness or media value, please look
no further," reads the Web site for the Shanghai-based service, which is
rife with typos and misspellings. "We do not have detail regarding the
source of organs."

Some Americans have spoken openly about their Chinese transplants.

Eric De Leon of San Mateo, Calif., had nine tumors on his liver and was
unresponsive to chemotherapy when his doctors concluded that his chances for
survival were low, even with a new liver. He was removed from the U.S.
transplant list as required by national eligibility rules.

He got a second mortgage on his house and went to Shanghai.

"Are we ashamed of what we did? No, we are not," his wife, Lori, said on
their blog, Transplant Tales: China and Back. "We did what we needed to do."

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