Transplant claims debunked

Beijing: It cannot be true that between 60,000 and 100,000 organ transplants are performed on the Chinese main-land yearly using organs taken from executed prisoners, prominent transplantation experts said.

Speaking at news conference after a symposium of the 26th International Congress of The Transplantation Society, held in Hong Kong, experts Jose Ramon Nunez Pena, medical officer of the World Health Organisation, and Michael Millis, vice-chairman for global surgery and director at the University of Chicago’s School of Medicine Transplant Centre, dismissed the allegations – which were raised by Western critics of China as early as 2006 – as implausible.

Pena, a transplant surgeon who has visited China often, said the claimed number is equal to the transplant activity of the entire world and is practically impossible.

Pena said that the WHO firmly and without reservation supports China’s new ethics-based, transparent organ donor programme, which must be free of corruption and financial incentives.

Transparency is the best guard against rumours, he said, acknowledging that China has taken many measures to ensure the fairness and traceability of the whole organ donation and distribution process.

“It is time to close the door to rumours and open the door to the facts,” Pena said.

“China now has joined the transplantation train along with the international community. We are all in the same train because we share the same principles and ethical practices.”

Rumours about “organ harvesting” were said to be false in 2006, after an investigation conducted by the United States Consulate General in Liaoning province.

The source of the rumour was Falun Gong, an outlawed group on the Chinese mainland, which alleged that the organs of more than 6,000 practitioners had been illegally extracted at Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital in Liaoning, it said.

However, some people with political influence have made the opposite claim. — China Daily/Asia News Network