CHINA. CHINA “SELLING PRISONERS' ORGANS”, BRITISH TRANSPLANTATION SOCIETY

April 19, 2006: top British transplant surgeons accused China of harvesting the organs of thousands of executed prisoners a year to sell for transplants.
In a statement, the British Transplantation Society condemned the practice as unacceptable and a breach of human rights.
The move came less than a week after Chinese officials publicly denied the practice.
In March, China said it would ban the sale of human organs from July.
The British Transplantation Society says an accumulating weight of evidence suggests the organs of thousands of executed prisoners in China are being removed for transplants without consent.
Professor Stephen Wigmore, who chairs the society's ethics committee, told the BBC that the speed of matching donors and patients, sometimes as little as a week, implied prisoners were being selected before execution. (Sources: BBC NEWS, 19/04/2006)