State Organs
Transplant Abuse in China
Transplant Abuse in China
Edited by David Matas and Torsten Trey
China’s organ transplant numbers are second only to the United States. Unlike any other country, virtually all Chinese organs for transplants come from prisoners. Many of these are prisoners of conscience. The killing of prisoners for their organs is a plain breach of the most basic medical ethics. State Organs explores the involvement of Chinese state institutions in this abuse. The book brings together authors from four continents who share their views and insights on the ways to combat these violations.State Organs aims to inform the reader and hopes to influence change in China to end the abuse.
“It seems to me that I cannot control what goes on in China. … But, we can control what goes on among ourselves. We can control what goes on in our journals, our meetings, our events, and our conferences. This is ours. At least we can control what goes on in our media.”
~ Gabriel Danovitch, MD
~ Gabriel Danovitch, MD
“Organs that are harvested unethically or criminally will yield clinical trial data that is criminal or unethical.”
~ Eric Goldberg, MD
~ Eric Goldberg, MD
“The ultimate responsibility for the ethics of transplantation is the transplant team. They have to verify that consent was obtained. They have to verify that the person did voluntarily give that organ up. They can’t say they don’t know where the organ came from. They can’t say they don’t care where the organ came from.”
~ Arthur Caplan, PhD
~ Arthur Caplan, PhD
David Matas is an international human rights lawyer based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is the co-author, with David Kilgour, of ‘Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for Their Organs’, published by Seraphim Editions in 2009. For their efforts in combating Chinese organ transplant abuse, the two Davids were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.
David Matas Extended Bio
David Matas Extended Bio
Dr. Torsten Trey is founding member and Executive Director of ‘Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting’ (DAFOH). After learning about the systematic harvesting of organs from living prisoners of conscience against their will, he decided to shift his focus from patient care to this non-profit organization.
Int r o d u c t i o n
The purpose of medicine is to provide care for
those who suffer. The Hippocratic Oath commits medical doctors
to not do harm. Giving a lethal drug to anyone or advising such an
action violates that oath. Yet, in China, we can see that this ethical
principle is violated by the taking of organs from prisoners, including
prisoners of conscience. These prisoners of conscience are mostly
practitioners of Falun Gong, but also include Uighurs, Tibetans
and others.
While organ transplant abuse exists in many countries, China presents
a unique situation, a country where state institutions are heavily
implicated in the abuse. How do we stop the killing in China of
innocents for their organs?
There appear to be three basic answers to that question. One is to
end the persecution against a particular group such as Falun Gong,
which was banned in China in 1999 because the then leader of
the Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, feared that its popularity would
threaten the ideological supremacy of the Party. The second is to
end the network of slave labour camps in China, euphemistically
called “re-education through labour camps”, where detained Falun
Gong are mostly housed and which have become vast forced organ
donor banks. The third is to end the killing of prisoners for their
organs in general. End the killing of all prisoners for their organs,
and then the killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs
would inevitably cease.
Human rights advocacy is an effort in mobilization. It is easy
enough to say that human rights belong to all humanity. However,
getting people to do something about it is not so easy. Yet, as Greek
lawmaker Solon noted over two thousand five hundred years ago,
we shall succeed in ending injustice and abuse when those who
are not the victims are as outraged about the injustice and harm as
those who are the victims.
Parliamentarians, media, ethicists, international human rights
organizations, international lawyers, government foreign affairs
officials, human rights educators and intergovernmental human
rights officials all ought to be allies in the effort to combat organ
transplant abuse in China. By experience, the group above all that
took up the challenge and moved in greatest numbers and most
cohesively to do something to end that abuse was the medical
profession.
In some ways this was understandable, since it was their profession
which was being abused. As well, they had forms of influence,
through peer pressure, that others did not have. In addition, their
knowledge of the science of transplantation and the people involved
meant that many of them knew that this abuse could be and was
happening.
After the first version of the report Bloody Harvest came out in July
2006, David Kilgour and David Matas travelled around the world to
combat the abuse their report identified. Conferences of transplant
professionals turned out to be fruitful venues. Co-editor David Matas
participated in the Congress of The Transplantation Society in Sydney,
Australia in 2008 and in Vancouver in 2010, the American Transplant
Congress in Philadelphia in 2011 and Congress of the European Society
for Organ Transplantation in Glasgow in 2011. He met many
concerned, knowledgeable professionals including several of the
contributors to this book.
The unethical organ procurement practices in China led to the
foundation of the NGO “Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting”
(DAFOH). Executive Director of DAFOH and co-editor, Dr. Torsten
Trey, made contacts with many doctors from around the world who
shared the same wish to end this unethical practice.
This book builds on these contacts and this developing coalition of
medical concern. It is a statement of the problem, a report on the
efforts made to date and a call for continuing efforts to combat the
abuse.
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The first essay, by Dr. Torsten Trey, introduces the topic of the book.
His presentation shows how transplant medicine in China got to
the point where it is now. His essay analyses organ sources and
shows that the officially acknowledged source of organs, prisoners
sentenced to death, cannot be the only explanation for organ sourcing.
The second essay, by Dr. Arthur Caplan, focuses on the ethical
complications which arise from using prisoner organs for
transplantation with the claim that there is free consent. The author
reminds us of the responsibilities of the medical profession and lays out
options doctors have.
Dr. Ghazali Ahmad, the author of the third essay, shares his
experience about the shifts in transplant tourism in his country,
Malaysia, in recent years and how transplant treatments in China
for Malaysian patients changed after 2006. The essay is a reminder
that following ethical requirements is a pre-condition for best practices
in medicine.
Ethan Gutmann, the author of the fourth essay, provides a survey
based estimate of Falun Gong murdered for organ transplants.
The author relies on a range of detailed interviews of individual
witnesses.
The author of the fifth essay, Erping Zhang, addresses the history
of transplant medicine and laws in China. He attempts to explain
the particular vulnerability of the Falun Gong movement to being
targeted for organ harvesting.
In the sixth essay, David Matas looks at the same issue as Ethan
Gutmann, the issue of numbers, using a different methodology.
Though the techniques are different, the conclusions largely coincide.
The seventh essay, by David Kilgour and Jan Harvey, provides
perspective on Falun Gong as well as a historical timeline of events
surrounding unethical organ harvesting in China. References to specific
individual victims of organ harvesting add further reality to the story of victimization.
individual victims of organ harvesting add further reality to the story of victimization.
The author of the eighth essay, Dr. Jacob Lavee, recounts his
personal path after a patient of his in Israel received a heart transplant
on short notice in China. He developed ideas later used for a new
transplant law in Israel, a law which generated a more than sixty
percent increase in organ donations in one year.
In the ninth essay, Dr. Gabriel Danovitch elaborates on the
responsibility of scientists to pursue ethical research. The author
urges the application of ethical standards when publishing research
results in medical journals.
The tenth essay, the work of Arne Schwarz, addresses the use of
transplant related drugs tested in clinical trials in China and elaborates
on the question of how pharmaceutical companies react to the
fact that over ninety percent of transplant organs in China stem
from prisoners. The author advocates that data unethically acquired in
clinical trials should not be used for scientific findings.
In the eleventh and last essay, Dr. Maria A. Fiatarone Singh writes a
personal essay about her involvement in promoting ethics in transplant
medicine. Despite her not being professionally part of the transplant
field, the author felt compelled to take an active role in calling for
an end to unethical organ harvesting in China.
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大家都来看”九评共产党” ( VCD, 书)!
Let’s find “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party”(VCD, books)!
快上大纪元声明退出共产党和共产党其它组织(/团/队)，抹去邪恶的印记!
Quit the Evil Chinese Communist Party or its affiliated organizations today!
