CHINA. CHINA TO 'TIDY UP' TRADE IN EXECUTED PRISONERS' ORGANS

December 2, 2005: China broke its silence to admit for the first time that the organs of executed prisoners were sold to foreigners for transplant. For many years it had denied that such a trade existed. But Huang Jiefu, the Deputy Health Minister, acknowledged that the practice was widespread and promised to tighten the rules.
“We want to push for regulations on organ transplants to standardise the management of the supply of organs from executed prisoners and tidy up the medical market,” Huang told Caijing magazine. Huang said that regulations drafted in August 2005 and now being amended before being handed to the State Council for final approval aimed to end the commercialization of organ transplants in China.
The only existing regulation covering the removal of organs from the bodies of executed prisoners was a 1984 draft document that stipulated that such operations could take place only with the consent of the family or if the body went unclaimed.
Huang added that the regulations would help to improve China’s image over organ transplants and give condemned prisoners greater control over whether to donate their organs. They would also make it more difficult to buy organs removed after execution. The supply of organs in China is severely restricted because of religious traditions that require the body to be whole when it enters the afterlife. Yet the country had carried out more organ transplants than any other except the US. Since 1993 China had performed 60,000 kidney transplants, 6,000 liver transplants and 250 heart transplants.
Almost all organs harvested from dead bodies came from those of executed prisoners, Caijing magazine said. That had prompted human rights organizations to question the way in which organs were obtained and supplied to patients requiring transplants. In the past doctors had recounted how they have traveled to execution grounds in specially equipped ambulances with a team of nurses to harvest the organs with as little delay as possible. (Sources: The Times, 03/12/2005)