(Minghui.org) As practitioners from around the world hold activities to mark the start of their 13-year efforts to end the persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) around July 20, a new book, State Organs, which further exposes the CCP's atrocities of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners has been published and distributed. This is another powerful work which follows the publication of Bloody Harvest that will enable the general public to learn about the CCP's atrocities.
Front cover of the New Book State Organs
State Organs is written by authors from 4 continents, from 7 countries, from different professional backgrounds. It is a book of essays that approach the transplant abuse and unethical organ procurement in China from different angles. It includes essays that summarize witness reports, official information, historical timelines and in-depth analysis of the situation in China. The authors also discuss ways to combat the transplant abuse in China.
Dr. Torsten Trey: CCP has a secret source of organs
Dr. Torsten Trey, Executive Director of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, said in his essay that usually, the donors agree to donate organs with free consent; however in China, according to official statements, more than 90% of organs come from executed prisoners. This is already a breach of western medical ethical standards, but even with this official statement, there are approximately 2,000-8,000 executions per year that should deliver organs for 10,000-20,000 transplants per year. Given limiting factors like age, health status, infectious diseases among prisoners, blood type, tissue factors and the short waiting times, the official explanation appears insufficient to account for so many transplants. It suggests that there is another source for organs. Without an effective public organ donation program, it suggests that there is another secret source of organs.”
Given that Falun Gong practitioners are detained and physically examined (including costly diagnosis like blood samples, urine tests, x-rays, ultra-sound), while at the same time subjected to torture, it raises the question about the objective of such diagnostic procedures. And according to the investigation by David Matas and David Kilgour in Bloody Harvest, it suggests that followers of the Falun Gong spiritual practice are the subjects of this secret source of organs.
“Killing human beings for their organs in order to provide transplantation for others... leads transplant medicine as well as medicine in general into ad absurdum,” said Dr. Trey in his essay.
Director of a University in the US : CCP sentences prisoners to death with the purpose of harvesting their organs
Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses in his essay the phenomenon of transplant tourism and organ trafficking in general. He highlights that the free choice to donate organs is “crucial” and concludes that the practice in China to harvest organs from executed prisoners or detainees is not up to ethical standards of the world. The situation in China runs the risk that prisoners will be sentenced to death for the purpose of harvesting their organs.
Dr. Caplan calls for an end of the current organ procurement practice in China and calls upon the world to “adopt a stronger stance against this unacceptable source of organs.”
“The present system of relying on organs from executed prisoners ought to be changed. But, it should not be changed in the next three to five years. It ought to be changed in the next three to five minutes!” said Dr. Caplan in his essay.
Nephrology Department Chief from Malaysia: People travel to China for organs
Nephrology Department chief Dr. Ghazali Ahmad in the Hospital Kuala Lumpur describes transplant tourism in the Asian region, and how the donor regions shifted from India to China. He presents medical documents that show how Malaysian citizens returned from China after receiving a transplant. He noticed that patients were hastily dismissed from China, that the aftercare letter was usually poorly documented, and that after 2006, the documentation completely ended, and patients returned to Malaysia without any medical documentation. The year 2006 was when allegations first emerged that organs were being harvested from living Falun Gong practitioners and the first investigative report of Matas and Kilgour was published.
Think Tank Scholar: The persecution occurring in China is a crime against humanity
Ethan Gutmann, the author of Losing the New China, and former U.S. think tank researcher discusses in his essay the recent political changes in China with regard to Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun, and that both are CCP followers who likely have known about or participated in organ harvesting. Mr. Gutmann gives an analysis on the estimated number of Falun Gong practitioners who were subjected to organ harvesting, and includes quotes from approximately 40 witnesses that he has interviewed in relation to the organ harvesting. He also discusses the persecution of Falun Gong.
He wrote in his essay, “What has occurred [in China] is a crime against all humanity. ... Above all, no Western entity possesses the moral authority to allow the [CCP] to bury the full history of genocide in exchange for promises of medical reform.”
Zhang Erping: CCP harvests organs from living Falun Gong practitioners
Zhang Erping, Falun Gong spokesperson, provides insight into the Chinese culture and transplant laws in China. The first law to allow harvesting organs from executed prisoners dates back to 1984. There was a shortage of organs in China, because of the Confucius belief system that the body needs to stay intact after death, and that also explains the absence of a public organ donation program in China.
Mr. Zhang then describes various forms of transplant abuse in China, including organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.
Mr. Zhang wrote in his essay, “It raises serious concerns when there is lack of transparency regarding the source of organs as well as the number of executions taking place each year in China: who are these prisoners and for what crimes are they executed?”
David Matas: The numbers related to transplants given by the CCP are implausible
Canadian internationally renowned human rights lawyer David Matas looks into the numbers and other statements that were given by Chinese sources. His observation is that many of the numbers related to transplants given by Chinese authorities are implausible. He then deducts how many Falun Gong practitioners could be subject to organ harvesting.
David Kilgour: Strong actions should be taken to end the atrocities of live organ harvesting
David Kilgour, former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific and Canadian educator Jan Harvey, the co-authors, give insights into the persecution of Falun Gong and provide examples of Falun Gong practitioners who were persecuted and organs removed.
They also deliver a timeline of the organ harvesting in China. And suggest how people should react.
They wrote in their essay, “No action is too strong to discourage a barbaric practice which violates both the foundation of human dignity -- respect for the human body -- and the essence of ethical standards in medicine.”
Israeli Expert: Israelis will no longer go to China for organ transplants
Dr. Jacob Lavee, Israeli heart surgeon, talks about his own experience of having a patient who went to China for a heart transplant with two weeks advanced notice. After he got curious and did his own research, he learned about the organ harvesting from prisoners in China. Dr. Lavee then describes how he initiated an end to this transplant tourism by discouraging patients from going and simultaneously implementing a new transplant law which generated an increase of organ donations in Israel by over 60% in one year. The essay is reflects an amazing path of combating an evil practice by taking individual initiative.
Dr. Lavee wrote in his essay: “The Israeli legal approach has successfully managed to disengage Israeli candidates for organ transplantation from getting their organs in China.”
Medical Director: Doctors should condemn the CCP's barbaric organ harvesting
Dr. Gabriel Danovitch, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Nephrology and Medical Director for the Kidney& Pancreas Transplant Program, takes a look into the procedures of accepting transplant related scientific papers from China for western medical journals. He noticed a lack of due diligence when medical journals accepted papers in which the Chinese authors spoke of 'standard methods' when they meant to 'gunshot to the head'. Such scientific research should NOT become part of western scientific knowledge.
Dr. Danovitch reminds the reader, that, although we might not have control over China, we have control over our medical journals and should not sacrifice our ethical standards in our research. With his essay, Dr. Danovitch elaborates that doctors in the free world have a space to reject and condemn the practices in China. He thus suggests that medical journals do not accept transplant related scientific papers from China, and that doctors from China not be allowed to present transplant related data at medical conferences, unless they explicitly say that their findings are not derived from executed prisoners' organs.
Dr. Danovitch wrote in his essay: “We cannot control events in China, but, at the very least, we can control the content of our meetings and journals and work towards the day when Chinese organ transplantation will take its place as an honored and respected part of the international organ transplant community.”
Human Rights Experts in Switzerland: Transplanted organs should have traceability
Swiss human rights expert Dr. Arne Schwarz elaborates on pharmaceutical companies performing clinical trials in China with transplant related drugs, like anti-rejection drugs. The patients that are enrolled in those clinical trials, have received their transplant organs in China. However, according to the Vice-Health minister, 90% of the organs come from executed prisoners, hence there is a reasonable likelihood that the patients enrolled in such clinical trials have a transplant organ that has been unethically procured, which then creates an ethical problem regarding the drugs that are tested in those trials, and then later sold worldwide. Dr. Schwarz elaborates on this complex topic by referring to some companies, and reminds readers that the WHO in its guiding principle on human cell, tissue and organ transplantation demands traceability of transplanted organs and transparency to scrutiny. He is calling upon corporate responsibility to ensure ethical standards.
“Thus, under these circumstances, delegating organ procurement to an abusive transplant system is irresponsible,” wrote Dr. Schwarz in his essay.
Professor of Medicine: Take action to protect those who are being harmed by others
Dr. Maria Fiatarone Singh is professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Sydney in Australia. When she heard about the organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners in China she was shocked, and despite not being related to transplant medicine, she got curious and actively involved in the work of DAFOH. Dr. Singh then had the experience of being approached by a Chinese who claimed to be a student who said that the harvesting of organs does not exist. He then also stated that the massacre on Tiananmen Square in 1989 didn't happen, either. The Transplantation Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ) decided that Australian transplantation training programs would not accept Chinese surgeons unless they signed a written contract that they would not use prisoners as a source of transplants once they returned to China. After this policy was put in place, no more Chinese transplant surgeons came to Australia for training.
Dr. Singh wrote in her essay, “As physicians, we are bound by our oath to prevent harm, and this includes acting to protect those who are being harmed by others. As humans, we can do no less.”
She quoted American anthropologist Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Category: Organ Harvesting
