ISHLT revises policy to include ban on all Chinese transplant research submissions
In a June public statement, the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation instituted a ban on all transplant research submissions from mainland China. This policy prohibits publication of articles in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation and presentations at ISHLT’s annual meetings. Professor Dr. Jacob Lavee, Israeli transplant surgeon, member of ISHLT’s ethics committee and DAFOH’s advisory board, told The Epoch Times, “The new policy is, in effect, a full academic boycott on any transplant-related clinical research from China” and reflects ISHLT’s “desire to distance itself and its members from this atrocious transplant conduct.” The new policy will be reviewed on an annual basis.
Taiwan hospital severs ties with doctors who conducted organ harvesting in China
A Taiwan hospital announced on June 17th that it would not renew its employment contracts with two doctors who performed organ transplant surgeries in mainland China without reporting the procedures to the hospital. The hospital’s statement on their decision notes that China is illegally harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners and others prisoners of conscience and that the two doctors have conducted multiple organ transplant surgeries in China. The doctors have gone against the rules for transparent and traceable organ sources, the statement reads, and may have violated medical ethics.
Hudson Institute interviews experts on China’s forced organ harvesting practices
At a virtual event by the conservative think tank Hudson Institute on June 30, Dr. Jessica Russo, DAFOH board member and Nury Turkel, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, offered their perspectives on China’s forced organ harvesting crimes against Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs. Russo opined that Western complacency and engagement with China was helping to fuel this crime. Turkel noted that the Chinese government is commercializing its organs by marketing to Muslims around the world through advertising “halal” organs, i.e., organs from people who didn’t drink alcohol, eat pork, or do anything forbidden by Islam.
Former CIA analyst offers misguided and dangerous take on Western engagement with China
Retired CIA analyst for East Asia Paul Heer, now a distinguished fellow at The Center for the National Interest, recently published an article titled “Engagement with China Has Not Failed: It just hasn’t succeeded yet.” As noted by The Washington Times, Heer makes only one mention of the Chinese government’s countless crimes against its own people, that of the rampage on students at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Despite China’s escalating restrictions and suppression of its own citizens, as well its hostility towards the West, Heer claims that engagement with China has helped to create a more “liberal, tolerant China.” Such extreme denial of China’s atrocities will only help to fuel China’s mass murder through forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, human rights violations against the Uyghurs, and other crimes against humanity.
The Conversation highlights key points in China’s illegal transplant practices
“Killing Prisoners for Transplants,” an article written by McMaster University professors Ali Iqbal, a transplant nephrologist and Aliya Khan of the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism and Geriatrics, co-authored by Susie Hughes, Executive Director of End Transplant Abuse in China, details several major pieces of evidence and international responses to China’s forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, and other prisoners of conscience. The authors urge the international medical community to speak out about these crimes, avoid collaboration where transparency or organ source cannot be guaranteed, and encourage voluntary organ donation.
400 million relinquish their affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
The Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party, also known as “Tuidang,” announced on Aug. 3 that the number of Chinese people who have renounced ties to the CCP and its affiliated organizations had reached 400 million. Tuidang began in 2004 after The Epoch Times published the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,” an expose on the history of the CCP and its crimes against its own citizens. Noted among those crimes is the mass murder of innocent prisoners of conscience through forced organ harvesting. Tuidang is one of the largest grassroots movements in the world.
CCP exports forced organ harvesting to nations in Southeast Asia
Due to the “One Belt, One Road” initiative, the crime of organ harvesting in mainland China has become rampant throughout Southeast Asia, according to YouTube channel China Revealed. The report states that an organ price list from Cambodia and circulated throughout Southeast Asia was posted on the internet in mid-August, and Southeast Asia is said to have ‘“sufficient supply”’ of these vital organs. The report notes that NTD news has determined that most of this organ trafficking is run by criminal groups from China with close ties to CCP officials.
Experts claim China’s forced organ harvesting demands U.S. response
Two authorities on religious freedom, Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute and Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice, have published an article in RealClearPolitics on the urgency of a U.S. response to China’s forced organ harvesting practices. The authors note that despite strong evidence of the Chinese government’s mass murder through transplantation, neither the U.S. federal government nor the medical establishment has taken a definitive stand against this crime. Instead, many in the U.S. have supported and even praised Chinese officials for their contributions in the transplantation field.
Grassroots activist calls attention to forced organ harvesting
Mitchell Nicholas Gerber, a contributor for Stoporganharvesting.org, detailed evidence of China’s transplantation crimes against Falun Gong practitioners on the Health Ranger Report with Mike Adams. During the interview, Gerber played an audio recording of Edward McMIllan Scott, a British politician and the last and longest-serving UK Vice-President of the European Parliament (2004-2014) with the Human Rights and Democracy portfolio, speaking about the atrocities being committed against the Falun Gong in China. Gerber uses McMillian’s defense of Falun Gong’s peaceful nature to argue for the exposure of the genocide being committed by the Chinese government.
China criticizes Italy’s media for its report on forced organ harvesting
An article exposing China’s industrial-scale and inhumane practice of organ harvesting was published in the Italian weekly magazine Panorama on August 24. On August 28, China’s Embassy in Italy offered a formal condemnation of the article, claiming that China’s transplantation industry is both ethical and legal and only uses organs from voluntary donors. The Chinese government has continued to state, as it did in its formal denouncement of the Panorama article, that forced organ harvesting is a rumor instigated by the Falun Gong community and other so called “anti-Chinese” organizations to fuel a racist (Sinophobia) agenda.
