 The Czech Medical Chamber (CMC) published an article in its peer reviewed journal, Tempus Medicorum (April 2015, p.20-21), by EU Policy Advisor Lukás Pfauser, informing the medical community about bioethical violations concerning China’s unethical practice of forced organ harvesting. Based in Prague, the CMC is a non-political autonomous organization responsible for the interests, professionalism, ethics and honor of the Czech medical profession. The law prescribes obligatory membership in the Chamber for all 42,000 physicians practicing in the Czech Republic. The Chinese government, writes Pfause, began using executed prisoners in 1984, but is now committing an even greater offense – killing prisoners of conscience to procure organs on demand for transplantation. Mr. Pfause’s article highlights evidence involving the practice of forced organ harvesting in China and reviews expert reports from DAFOH director Dr. Torsten Trey and Israeli transplant surgeon Dr. Jacob Lavee. The article describes the ethical standards against taking prisoner’s organs from the guiding bodies in organ procurement: the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, WHO, WMA and the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group. |
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Doctors and Nurses respond to The Lancet: Doubts remain over China’s announcement to end organ harvesting from prisoners |
 As of January 2015, China has banned the harvesting of transplant organs from executed prisoners, promising that voluntary donation will be the only source of organs. But, the international medical community fears that prisoners’ organs may be unethically reclassified as “donations” in a change of nomenclature instead. And, a good faith gesture of transparency has not been forthcoming. Despite this, many medical professionals accept China’s promise of medical reform at face value. China is under increasing pressure to end the unethical practice of harvesting prisoners’ organs. The persistent efforts and reports of thousands of persecution survivors, and their families, who defected from prisons in China, investigators, doctors, nurses and other advocates to clarify the reality of the problem has inspired a response and promise of reform in China. This response is rare behind the iron curtain and the unrelenting foreign campaign demanding legitimacy, truthfulness, and unbiased investigation of China’s organ procurement systems continues unabated. In a series of letters to the medical journal, The Lancet, several groups of doctors, nurses and medical professionals from the United States, Canada, Germany, the UK and Australia, including DAFOH director Dr, Torsten Trey, wrote responses to the journal’s coverage of the announced reforms in China in transplant medicine: “Weaning China off organs from executed prisoners.” Media news sources The Yibada and The Peninsula of Qatar wrote articles in response to the Lancet letters, quoting the authors and expressing doubt over China’s intentions for real change in organ procurement. Weaning China off organs from executed prisoners – The Lancet Series: Organ transplantation in China: concerns remain Authors; Guo-You Zhang, Tian Liao, Xiao-Bing Fu, Qing-Feng Li Authors: Liz Kerr RN, Deborah Collins-Perrica APRN Authors: Torsten Trey, Adnan Sharif, Maria Fiatarone Singh, Zain Khalpey, Arthur L Caplan Authors: Huige Liemail, Michael E Shapiro, Charl Els, Kirk C Allison Author: Jacob Lavee, Vivekanand Jha Author: Hong Zhang |
 This April, the feature documentary Human Harvest: Inside China’s Illegal Organ Trade aired on Australia’s SBS Dateline, a well-respected primetime news program. The film, directed and produced by Leon Lee and released in late 2014, is a powerful examination of the organ harvesting industry in China and has won awards of distinction, including the prestigious Peabody Award, Top Prize in the Viewster Film Festival, the Michael Sullivan DATELINE award for journalism in a documentary and several others.
The film highlights some of the incredible work done by Nobel Peace Prize nominee investigators David Matas and David Kilgour, Ethan Guttman, Torsten Trey, DAFOH and the many people involved in trying to end illegal organ transplantation practices in China. Judges for the Peabody Awards commented on the film: “With powerful testimonials about the intricacies of the trade and the human cost, including interviews with Chinese doctors who confide they’ve been coerced into removing organs from live political prisoners, this is a harrowing exposé of a fiendish system of forced organ donor transplants.” |
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Governments and Parliamentarians At an international conference in Spain, 14 countries signed a treaty demanding passage of laws preventing and criminalizing collusion. |
Medical Professionals and Associations DAFOH advisor and founding director of the Heart Transplantation Unit at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Aviv University, Israel, Dr. Jacob Lavee describes his personal awakening to the urgent organ harvesting crisis in China and outlines the evidence of human rights atrocities, global collusion, and the position of medical leaders. |
Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting Actions The international community should not find relief from the crisis in transplant medicine in China’s recent promise to end the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners, said a DAFOH press release April 7th. DAFOH urges the global medical community to be vigilant and not accept China’s claims at face value, pointing out several key factors. |
Investigators and Media Chinese officials promise to end organ harvesting from prisoners but, persuading the public to donate remains a problem and securing any guarantee remains elusive. Doubts still exist over China’s prisoner organ harvesting ban The Peninsula reported that Chinese authorities have demanded all Chinese hospitals stop using organs harvested from executed prisoners. Yet, experts are skeptical that the practice will continue unabated and prisoner’s organs will be miscategorized as “donations.” Live organ procurement in China In this Hong Kong TV interview, former Chinese military surgeon, Dr. Jiang Yanyong, reveals that Chinese military hospitals participated in organ harvesting from living prisoners. Dr. Yanyong exposed China’s SARS coverup in 2003. Hospital intern forced to participate in live organ harvesting in China A former Chinese hospital intern, now living in Canada, shares the gruesome details of being forced to participate in the extraction of organs from a living person. Ethan Gutmann: Recent media coverage of China’s organ harvesting In this interview the award winning journalist, author and former foreign policy analyst encourages people to read the recent news on forced organ harvesting and develop their own activism. Whistle blower calls for exposure of organ harvesting mass murder Chinese Communist Party top adviser and standing committee member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Ge Jianxiong, describes the opacity of politics and propaganda as international pressure continues to build for a full accounting of organ harvesting in China. China passes law easing regulation of organ donations Guangzhou City to encourage people beyond the family to give permission for organ harvesting. Critics say the law will “open the bloody floodgates of the black market organ trade and further government-managed organ harvesting.” The major national news service gives a call to action for a petition against forced organ harvesting in China with the persecuted Falun Gong prisoners of conscience as the primary victims. Former prison guard reveals details of the organ harvesting industry in China The Epoch Times reports on the global reaction to the internet exposé about the extraction of prisoner organs witnessed by a former prison guard. In troubling detail, it sketches out the chain of profit, corruption, and violence that drives the organ harvesting industry in Chinese prisons. Islamic State financing terrorism through harvesting organs A top diplomat has disclosed that massive graves containing bodies with surgical incisions have been found. The Tagesanzeiger, one of the two most prominent newspapers in Switzerland (500,000 readers), prominently covered on the front page a new, yet ethically questionable, project between Novartis Pharmaceutical and 11 Chinese transplant specialty centers. |
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Dear Colleagues and Friends, As DAFOH approaches the third year of publishing this newsletter it has become a benchmark source of information on unethical, forced organ harvesting. This achievement is possible in large part due to a committed team of editors and writers who make this newsletter happen every quarter. It is also testimony to the fact that significant change can occur when people are committed to working together for a higher cause. May our team’s success encourage and inspire the medical community to unite their efforts in bringing an end to unethical, forced organ harvesting where ever it occurs, without turning a blind eye to certain countries. The news of the past year that dominated the medical headlines-China’s announcement to end the organ procurement from executed prisoners by January 1, 2015-also carries the greatest amount of deception and danger to life. While many doctors may have the perception that this announcement equates to a legally binding step, no legal text has yet been found that writes this announcement into law. On the contrary, the 1984 provision that allows the organ procurement from prisoners after execution is still in place in China today. There is a common understanding among the community of lawyers that China does not have a rule of law. Tax laws can be implemented within a week, penalties on companies can be levied at anytime. The Chinese constitution grants freedom of speech and belief to its citizens, yet the reality is a travesty to human life. China has implemented transplant related laws, but only to prove their ineffectiveness, implementing new laws soon after. While the law now prohibits providing transplants to foreign medical tourists, doctors from around the world report that their patients still come back from China with newly transplanted organs. While it has been announced that the organ harvesting from executed prisoners was to end by January 1, 2015, a flexible exception has been given for death row prisoners who “wish” to donate their organs. A glaring omission is most concerning: the announcement only addresses death row prisoners, but not prisoners of conscience who can be killed for their organs without breaching the new announcement. While many medical organizations are flocking to China to celebrate this new change at a conference later this year, the duty to due diligence in upholding long held ethical standards is sacrificed with fatal consequences. After three decades of unethical transplant practices, reminiscent of the Nazi atrocities of 75 years ago, a simple announcement and a few showcase examples are accepted without scrutiny, without demanding transparency or withstanding the rigors of long held medical standards. Grasping at the straw that China offers to the medical community might be a desperate attempt to ignore a practice that has stained the medical profession to an intolerable degree. But, it is also a concerning step towards a decline of our ethical standards. If we applaud China’s announcement, without scrutiny, would we also applaud cases of malpractice? Even worse, one might regret the premature applause if a trade off were to occur: organ sourcing from prisoners of conscience. As long as there is no verifiable end of organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, and they remain subject to persecution, the medical community should be on guard and insist on a complete end to the practices. Our duty to due diligence requires scrutiny, inspections and verification. Sincerely, Torsten Trey, MD, PhD Executive Director, DAFOH |
Resources: Videos, Books, Web, Reports |
The Slaughter: Mass Killing, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem |
Multilingual News Briefs Albanian: Bosnian: Bulgarian: Chinese: |
Become a DAFOH member doctor: | Support DAFOH with a charitable gift: | | If you would like to make a financial contribution to support the work of DAFOH, please send your gift to: Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting 1776 I Street NW, 9th Floor
Washington, DC 20006 |
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Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) aims to provide the medical community and society with objective findings of unethical and illegal organ harvesting. Organ harvesting, the removal of organs from a donor, without free and voluntary consent, is considered a crime against humanity, as well as a threat to the integrity of medical science in general. This edition of our newsletter offers up-to-date information on international efforts to stop unethical organ harvesting. |
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German analyst, Arne Schwarz, has explored unethical organ harvesting practices. As co-author of the book, State Organs: Transplant Abuse in China, Schwarz has been widely recognized and awarded for revealing Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche’s involvement in unethical clinical trials in China. His work is noted throughout the medical literature concerning the implications of western pharmaceutical companies in illegal and unethical transplant practices.
