An article published in the April 4th edition of Qi Lu Evening
, a newspaper in Shandong Province in eastern China, has attracted
people's attention and recently circulated throughout the
Internet. It reported that a young man temporarily working
in Jinan City decided to donate his corneas after a kidney
failure diagnosis. However, several major hospitals throughout
the area explained that they were "not qualified"
to accept the donation. An official in the Ophthalmology Department
of the Jinan Central Hospital even mentioned that none of
the corneas used by his department came from donations.
This report revisits the concern over the source of organs
used for transplants in mainland China. Since witnesses testified
on March 9, 2006 that China harvests organs from live Falun
Gong practitioners at a hospital in Sujiatun, Shenyang City
in northwestern China, Beijing has been confronted with increasing
concern over the source of the country's organ supply. Chinese
authorities continue to proclaim that organs come mainly from
donations, however the Qi Lu Evening report has further stoked
public doubt.
Dr. Wang Wenyi, a practicing physician at Mount Sinai Hospital
in New York City has long dedicated herself to the investigation
of the Chinese regime's harvesting organs from living Falun
Gong practitioners. She pointed out that to cover up the organ-harvesting
atrocity the Chinese regime has repeatedly lied to the world.
When questioned on the source of the organ supply in China,
the regime initially claimed that they were donated, but later
they admitted that the organs were harvested from death row
criminals. However, the large number of organs being used
for transplants in recent years, added by the short waiting
period for matching organs, indicates the existence of a living
organ bank consisting mostly of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners.
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The Qi Lu report described the case of Wei Linying, a 29-year-old
man temporarily working in Jinan. Diagnosed with serious kidney
failure in February, Wei decided to donate his corneas after
his death. To help him find a place for donation, his family
members came to Jinan and asked the Qi Lu reporter for assistance.
On the afternoon of April 4, the reporter called the Jinan
municipal branch office and provincial and municipal branch
offices of the Red Cross Society of China, the Shandong Ophthalmology
Hospital and the Jinan Central Hospital. All of these medical
institutions replied that they were not qualified to accept
organ donations.
China expert Zhang Jielian says that the situation in Shandong
province is the same across China. Because of their past traditions,
Chinese people are not in the habit of donating their organs;
as a result, there is no organ donor program in the country.
Therefore, donation is not a likely major source for China's
organ supply.
On November 7, 2005, at WHO (World Health Organization) meeting
in Manila, China's Deputy Minister of Health, Huang Jiefu,
admitted that the Chinese communist regime had been harvesting
organs from executed criminals. This was the first official
confession the regime made of this practice.
On March 9, 2006, the organ harvesting from live Falun Gong
practitioners at the Sujiatun labor camp in Shenyang City
was exposed. Confronted with shock and condemnation from the
international community, the regime kept silent for 20 days
before the regime's foreign affair spokesman Qin Gang finally
denied the allegation, arguing that all organ transplants
were legal and had been agreed upon by the donors. Qin proclaimed
that most of the organs were donated by patients' relatives
or victims of traffic accidents.
In November 2006, Huang Jiefu repeated in a meeting in Guangzhou
that most of the transplanted organs in China were from criminals
of death penalty.
In a BBC interview on Nov. 1, 2007, the Chinese regime's
Health Ministry spokesman Mao Qunan restated that "most
of the transplanted organs were from criminals of death penalty."
Dr. Wang Wenyi, who protested at the White House against
Chinese leader Hu Jintao during his state visit on April 20,
2006, said the quantity of organs available from the executed
criminals is far lower than the actual number of transplant
operations, and it cannot explain why the organ donors can
be identified within such a short time, either. She says that
the regime's explanation of harvesting organs from executed
criminals is simply to divert public attention away from the
organ harvesting of live Falun Gong practitioners.
Dr. Wang said once foreign patients receive notification
from hospitals in China and make their payment, the transplant
operation can proceed in as little as three days. In most
cases, patients receive their organs within a week. Therefore,
a "criminal"—with matching blood and tissue
types—would have to be executed just a few days before,
and be willing to donate his or her organs.
Dr. Wang believes that there is only one possibility to explain
this coincidence—there exists an organ bank in China
where live donors, whose blood and tissue types have been
pre-recorded, can be retrieved whenever a paying customer
needs one.
Referring to the Chinese regime's official data, which mentions
that 90,000 organ transplants were conducted before 2005,
Wang estimates that 41,500 transplants should have taken place
between 2000 and 2005. However, this number far exceeds the
criminals executed in China over that time period. Without
any other reasonable explanation, the only possible source
of organs would be the large population of Falun Gong practitioners
whose whereabouts are unknown after being arrested during
the past eight years.
An independent Canadian delegate investigation published
two reports in 2006, providing substantial evidence to illustrate
that such "an evil that has never occurred on earth"
has been truly ongoing.
In a report issued by the "World Organization to Investigate
the Persecution of Falun Gong" (WOIPFG) in late 2007,
the organization has interviewed several Chinese officials,
including the coordinator of the kidney source in the Beijing
307 People's Liberation Army Hospital, the chief and clerk
associated with the No. 1 Criminal Court in the Jinzhou Intermediate
People's Court, and the surgeon in charge of kidney transplants
at the Guangxi People's Hospital. The interviewees' testimony
all indicates that a widespread program for organ harvesting
from live Falun Gong practitioners is still ongoing in China.