On Feb 15, 2017, Global Times, a subsidiary of the People’s Daily, a Chinese media paper, published an interview with China’s transplant chief, Huang Jiefu. For the convenience of our English readers, we provide here a web link to an archived form of the original interview at https://archive.is/iewsh.
Title of the interview:
Global Times Exclusive Interview of Huang Jiefu: Top Official at Ministry of Health Describes Organ Transplantation in China in Detail
Pertinent excerpts of the interview with English translation follow below. Highlighting in bold is done by the editor.
English translation:
Global Times: China has already cancelled the use of death row prisoner organs. Why is the transplant sector still the main target of attack for the anti-China forces?
Huang Jiefu: The Falun Gong evil religious organization has been attacking China’s human rights for over 10 years, and we only cancelled death row organs in 2015 – not many people know the true story. About the ‘live harvesting’ rumor, I’ve already stated many times that it’s ‘nonsense.‘ For over ten years now, Falun Gong have been making personal attacks and threats to many Chinese doctors, and quite a few doctors and hospitals receive threatening phone calls and text messages nearly every day. What needs to be emphasized is that the Falun Gong evil religious organization is mixing up “use of death row prisoner organs” with “live harvesting.” They don’t care whether or not China is using death row prisoner organs, and they care even less about the lives of millions of Chinese people suffering organ failure. They just want to politicize and demonize the Chinese transplant field.
Our use of death row prisoner organs before the establishment of a citizen organ donation system was an act of desperation to save the lives of patients suffering organ failure. When the citizen donation system was set up, we abolished this source of organs as quickly as possible. It’s just as I wrote to the Pope in a letter on February 4: “The mistake of a noble man is like an eclipse. When the mistake happens, others will see it; when the mistake is corrected, others will look up to him.”
Apart from that, the use of death row prisoner organs wasn’t China’s ‘innovation.’ In the 1990s when I visited Harvard, they showed me organ specimens that had come from executed prisoners. But because there were too many delays in the establishment of our citizen donation system, the use of death row prisoner organs truly became a target for Western hostile forces to attack China.
Chinese original:
环球时报：中国已经取消使用死囚器官，为什么器官移植领域还是反华势力的主要攻击目标？
黄洁夫：法轮功邪教组织以此攻击中国人权已有十多年，而中国2015年才取消使用死囚器官，真实故事尚未被很多人知道。关于“活摘器官”谣言，我已多次讲过是“胡说八道”。十多年来，法轮功对中国众多器官移植医生进行过人身攻击和威胁，不少医生和医院几乎每天收到恐吓电话和短信。需要强调的是，法轮功邪教组织在混淆“使用死囚器官”和“活摘器官”。他们不关心中国是不是在使用死囚器官，更不关心千千万万器官衰竭病人需要救命，只想把中国器官移植领域政治化、妖魔化。
我们在没有建立公民器官捐献体系之前使用死囚器官，是挽救器官衰竭病人的无奈之举，公民捐献体系建设好了，我们就尽快废除这个来源。正如同我在2月4日写给教皇信中表达过的，“圣人之过，如日月之蚀，错之，众人检视，改之，众人仰之”。
另外，使用死囚器官不是中国“原创”。上世纪90年代我去美国哈佛大学访问时，他们给我展示的器官标本来自死囚。但由于公民捐献体系的建立太滞后，使用死囚器官确实成了西方敌对势力攻击中国的靶子。
English translation:
Global Times: Another hot topic during this meeting [at the Vatican] was “transplant tourism.” According to what you know, which countries do the most “transplant tourism”?
Huang Jiefu: As to each country’s accurate numbers, I am not exactly sure. But I know that American law and regulation says that 5% of organ donations can be given to foreigners for transplantation. That is to say, America uses the law to violate the global transplant regulation of “self-sufficiency” in the transplant field. Of course, given global opposition, they’re also revising it. In 2016, America performed 280 organ transplants for foreigners, far more than the 5% limit. Apart from that, many organs in America do not come from citizen voluntary donations. Some groups, for instance poor people and refugees, will, for their livelihood, come to America and sell organs. So America is the most rampant organ trafficking country in the world.
Chinese original:
环球时报：本次大会的另一个讨论热点是“器官移植旅游”，据您所知，世界上哪些国家是“器官移植旅游”高发国？
黄洁夫：对于各国的准确数字，我并不都很了解。但我知道美国有法规规定，器官捐献的5%可以给外国人做器官移植。也就是说，美国用法律来违反国际器官移植领域“自给自足”的规定。当然，在世界各国的反对下，他们也正在修改。2016年，美国给外国人做了280例手术，远远超过5%的界限。此外，美国的器官很多都不是来源于公民自愿捐献，一些群体比如穷人、难民会为生计所迫跑去美国卖器官，所以美国是世界上器官买卖最猖獗的地方。
The interview has also been copied in several other Chinese news media, like e.g. at lfeng.com: https://archive.is/VRESD
