Newsletter B6/16 — December 30, 2016

This year the global community bore witness to a mass of demonstrative evidence and enduring courage as investigators and experts around the globe worked tenaciously to expose the crimes of China’s forced organ harvesting practices. In March, DAFOH conducted a critical examination of China’s official transplant numbers and transplantation practices throughout the country. We compared the official numbers with those publicized in reports generated by individual Chinese hospitals and considered all transplant sources which would contribute to the actual number of transplants conducted in China. We concluded that China’s annual transplant numbers may range between 30,000-50,000 transplants per year, far above the 10,000 that Chinese officials had claimed. Furthermore, our data unequivocally demonstrated that Falun Gong practitioners are the nation’s largest source for organ procurement.

The US House of Representatives took an unprecedented step on June 13th by unanimously passing House Res. 343, a bi-partisan call to end China’s forced organ harvesting of living prisoners of conscience. In her comments before the House, H.Res. 343’s initiator Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) referred to China’s killing of innocent people for profit as a “sickening and unethical practice [that] must stop.” The resolution notes that China’s organ transplantation system violates the WHO’s requirement of transparency and traceability in organ procurement.

Former Canadian MP David Kilgour, investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann and international human rights attorney David Matas released a stunning new report detailing China’s illicit transplantation practices. This 680 page report, published within weeks of the passage of H.Res. 343 in Congress, gives detailed evidence about transplant center bed counts, bed utilization rates, hospital revenue, surgical department personnel, staff training programs, medical journal articles, hospital websites, media reports, state funding and official propaganda dealing with China’s extensive transplant system. The authors estimate that up to 100,000 transplants occur annually in China and that organs are sourced from living prisoners of conscience, particularly the Falun Gong.

The European Union strengthened its call for an end to state-sanctioned organ harvesting in China with the passing of Written Declaration 48 by the European Parliament on July 27th with over half of the Parliament co-sponsoring the resolution well ahead of the deadline. The new legislation reinforces and builds upon a 2013 resolution which, despite being strongly supported, had not resulted in any definitive action being taken against China’s crimes.

China had hoped to garner accolades for announcing progress in transplant medicine at The Transplant Society’s (TTS) biennial conference in Hong Kong in August. Instead, Chinese officials were met with severe criticism from many in the international transplant community and the global media. In response to China’s unsubstantiated claims of progress, TTS President Philip O’Connell stated: “I have to tell you there remains, in many sectors, a deep sense of mistrust of your transplant programs which have been responsible for overt commercial trafficking of prisoner organs for transplantation to wealthy foreigners from the West and Middle East.”

Shortly after the Hong Kong congress, prominent doctors from around the globe allegedly made statements in praise of China’s unsubstantiated reforms at a conference on Chinese organ donation processes held in Beijing in October. The conference had support from the China National Organ Donation & Transplant Committee (CNODTC), the International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement (ISODP), The Transplantation Society (TTS), and the World Health Organization (WHO). However, no evidence was presented that China now sources all organs for transplantation in an ethical or transparent way.

Attendees at the invitation-only Beijing conference reportedly visited pre-selected transplant hospitals in order to “see for themselves” the success of China’s touted reforms. However, the delegates did not insist on independent inspections nor did they challenge official procedures or question the discrepant information made by government officials. After the hospital visit, WHO representative Dr. Jose Nunez reported that China’s practices are “safe, transparent, and ethical.”

While several experts came forward to speak out against forced organ harvesting this past year, we were disappointed that those who could have taken a more firm position did not. Although we understand the challenges in directly addressing China’s criminal activities, DAFOH believes that such a massive digression of medical and moral ethics requires an equal measure of attention and action.

DAFOH ended the last quarter of this year with the first International Day Against Forced Organ Harvesting on October 1st. Many volunteers and supporters from over two dozen countries helped our organization to collect more than 4,280 signatures during a one-day only petition to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

We applaud the international medical community, government bodies and independent investigators who have drawn attention to China’s transplantation crimes in this past year. We hope that those who have not taken a more active stand will do so in the coming year and help maintain the highest ideals in transplantation medicine, medical ethics and morality around the globe.