Transplant tourism is one of those dangerous businesses that proliferate in many developing-world countries. The intersection of rich foreigner frantic for a kidney, cornea or liver and poor local desperate to make money has spawned an illicit organ-trafficking industry, from India to Brazil. China, which is the subject of a new article in the respected medical journal The Lancet, is no exception:
China is attempting to move towards a more ethical, voluntary organ donation system that can service the nation's growing needs, but… that is proving easier said than done… In China, as in nearly all other countries, the number of patients in need of transplants far exceeds the number of organs available. China is unique, however, in trying to make up this imbalance by harvesting organs from the prisoners it executes, a policy fiercely criticised by foreign transplant specialists and human-rights advocates. “There is absolutely no excuse to be sourcing organs from prisoners in a system in which due legal process and the right of informed consent are by any means questionable”, says Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher with Human Rights Watch, “and in China they are highly questionable and highly unreliable.”
In 2007, in order to crack down on what appeared to be a growing trade in Chinese organs harvested for foreigners willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars, Beijing banned living organ donors, apart from family members or others who were “emotionally connected” to the needy patient. The regulations prohibited the organs of executed prisoners from going to anyone but their relatives. China's tough laws were viewed as commendable.
But since then it's not clear whether the regulations have been strictly enforced. Indeed, if a 2009 article in the state-run China Daily is to be believed, more than 65% of organs transplanted in China at that time came from executed prisoners. Back in 2006, the Chinese Health Ministry said that “very few” transplants conducted in China used the organs of executed inmates. But around that time I reported on a broker called Bek-Medical, which was based in Japan and advertised “fast, cheap and safe” transplants for Japanese patients who were willing to travel to China. One of the broker's staffers told TIME that the company organized 30 to 50 operations a year. The source for all the kidneys and livers? “Executed prisoners,” said the Bek-Medical employee.
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