22 March 2006 :

hundreds Hundreds of well-off Japanese and other nationals are turning to China's burgeoning human organ transplant industry, paying tens of thousands of pounds for livers and kidneys, which in some cases have been harvested from executed prisoners and sold to hospitals. hundredshuof well-off Japanese and other nationals were turning to China's burgeoning human organ transplant industry, paying tens of thousands of pounds for livers and kidneys, which in some cases had been harvested from executed prisoners and sold to hospitals. Beijing does not reveal how many people it executes, but analysts estimated as many as 8,000 people were killed each year.
Reports of Chinese authorities removing organs from executed prisoners had been circulating since the mid-1980s, when the development of a drug called Cyclosoporine-A made transplants a newly viable option for patients. Until now, most of the evidence linking executions to the organ trade had been anecdotal and had not been helped by a lack of transparency in the Chinese criminal justice system or the secrecy that surrounds prison executions.
Rumors of problems with follow-up care and patients dying within one to two years of returning from China had failed to stem the tide.