Letter to the Editor
MWC News, May 02,2007
– re: organ
trade
Human Rights Watch advocates expressed their
concerns last month about China’s new rules on organ trade and they’re not the
only ones. Earlier this year two Canadian lawyers reported that Chinese doctors
and the military are heavily involved in illicit organ harvesting and transplant
tourism in China.
Their study revealed that from 2000 to 2005, there were 41,500 organs of unknown origin transplanted in China--the unwilling donors being Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. They are pre blood-tested while incarcerated to provide match-able organs on demand and often killed in the process. Report: Bloody Harvest
It is clear that reviving these existing rules will serve one purpose
only-that is-to keep criticism at bay ahead of the Olympics. If we don't
question data derived from transplantations performed in China along with loose
regulations to remedy this macabre practice, I’m afraid we will simply fail the
test time and again. Meanwhile
the killing goes on unabated.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing":
Edmund Burke said. Please think twice before rushing to China to get a
kidney!
Marie Beaylieu
Victoria BC Canada
MWC News, May 02,2007
China has formally banned trading in human organs, introducing regulations on organ transplantation expressly prohibiting organisations and individuals from trading in any form.
Medical institutions involved in organ transplants face a minimum three-year
suspension while doctors risk losing their licence, the Xinhua news agency
said.
Fines are set at between eight to 10 times the value of the
outlawed trade, according to the regulations issued by the State Council,
China's cabinet.
Officials convicted of trading in human organs will be sacked and booted out
of the government.
Big demand
However, the new rules, which came into force on Tuesday, do not apply to transplants of human tissue such as cells, corneas or bone marrow.
International human rights groups have long accused China of harvesting organs from executed prisoners for transplant, sometimes to paying recipients, without the consent of the prisoner or his or her family.
Hospitals have also allegedly harvested organs from road accident victims and other dead patients secretly without the knowledge of the family members.
The government has denied the charges saying most organs are voluntarily donated by ordinary people and executed criminals with prior consent.
China is the world's second largest performer of transplants after the US, with about 5,000 operations annually.
In recent years foreign patients facing a shortage of compatible organs in their home countries have flocked to China for transplant operations.
But the country faces a huge gap in the supply and demand.
About 1.5 million patients need organ transplants each year but only 10,000 can find organs, according to statistics from the health ministry.
According to officials the new laws make it a crime to harvest human organs without consent or free will.
It also regulates procedures to prevent potential human rights abuses, requiring every transplant to be vetted by an ethics committee set up in the medical institution.
Disabled-friendly
The new transplant laws were introduced alongside a new set of regulations to promote employment opportunities for China's 83 million disabled people, which also took effect on Tuesday Xinhua said.
Issued in February, the regulations require that disabled people make up no less than 1.5 per cent of the government workforce, and are given equal treatment in promotions, salaries and social insurance.
Employers of disabled people will enjoy preferential taxation and other benefits including small business loans, according to the regulations.
Statistics show there are about 83 million disabled Chinese, of which only 23 million are employed.