(Clearwisdom.net) San Jose Mercury News published an article written by Tim Johnson on April 11, 2006. It stated that patients from around the globe mingle in the fourth-floor ward of the First Tianjin Central Hospital. In the past few years, several Chinese hospitals have done a soaring business in liver, heart and kidney transplants. They charge barely half as much as in the West.

The article said that a few weeks after receiving a lifesaving liver transplant, Pakistani businessman Shaukat Javed shuffled slowly around a specialty hospital ward chatting up fellow organ recipients. Javed said, "About every nation is here," "There are Korean, Japanese, Arabs, the whole (Persian) Gulf region. . . . There are a few guys from Israel as well."

Javed's mood turned sour only when he was asked about the donor of the liver. Did he know anything about the person? Javed said tersely "It isn't nice to look into these matters."

A variety of human rights groups - such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch - say donated organs in China often come from executed prisoners, and there are concerns that prisoners' wishes aren't always respected.

China's hospitals have a seemingly endless supply of organs because the country applies the death penalty more freely than any other nation. By harvesting from executed prisoners, hospitals receive a steady stream of organs and can match donors' compatibility with recipients ahead of time.

Secrecy shrouds the execution of prisoners. China doesn't say how many prisoners it kills each year, but legal scholars say it's probably between 3,000 and 8,000.

Accusations about harvesting organs from prisoners in China have existed for several decades. But they revived in recent weeks with reports in The Epoch Times, an overseas newspaper linked to Falun Gong, a banned spiritual movement. The newspaper charged that a secret labor camp near Shenyang, in China's northeastern region, contained Falun Gong detainees who were to be executed for the express purpose of providing organs that the state would sell for a profit.

Falun Gong advocates said the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital in Shenyang transplanted organs that were taken at the Sujiatun camp.

Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said March 31 that the Bush administration took the charges "very seriously" and he urged China to investigate.

Web sites in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan advertise the availability of liver and kidney transplants in China, and offer prices for the procedures. On the Web site www.bek-transplant.com, Chinese physicians say a kidney transplant for non-Chinese citizens would cost $70,000 and a liver transplant $120,000.

A British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, reported in December that its reporter posed as someone interested in getting involved in organ transplants as a business venture at a hospital in Guangzhou.

"We should be cautious - this is sensitive," the newspaper quoted a hospital physician, Na, as telling the reporter. The paper said Na offered a contract that provided commissions to brokers and middlemen for bringing in patients, and cut rates for more than 10 transplants.

Authorities don't reveal how many foreigners come to China for transplants each year, but if the bustling Tianjin transplant wards are any indication, the number is quite high. The hospital claims to have done about 1,000 liver transplants and 2,000 kidney transplants, making it the largest center for liver transplants in China.

South Korea's largest newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, said last year that about 1,000 Koreans a year were undergoing organ transplants in Chinese hospitals. Patients and family members at the Tianjin hospital said that once they'd heard of the availability of organs here, they rushed to arrange operations.

Nadeem Manjj came with his uncle, Mumdaz Ali Cheema, from Pakistan last June for a third liver transplant. The first two failed because Cheema has hepatitis C, complicating the procedure.

"They say this is the last chance," Manjj said. "It's very risky to do it a third time. There's nowhere else like this. Here, the organs are available. In England or the U.S., you have to bring a donor with you."

Manjj said the fees in China were half what they'd be in Britain or the United States, "and the post-transplant care is the same."

Cheema said, "In China, the donors are available all the time."