China's illegal organ transplant industry fueled by demand

Aug 13, 2009, 6:45 GMT

   Beijing - Chinese hospitals were still carrying out illegal organ transplants for foreigners as well as encouraging locals to use 'organ brokers,' the Ministry of Health and local media reported Thursday, as the government launched a review of medical institutions permitted to carry out transplants.

   Of the 164 institutions officially qualified to perform the surgeries, the Ministry of Health said 16 failed to comply with regulations on organ transplants, the state-run China Daily reported.

   While the report did not provide details of how the institutions had failed to comply with the regulations, it said that some hospitals were still providing illegal organ transplant operations to foreigners.

   In 2007, China passed regulations to prevent 'transplant tourism,' but last year, three hospitals were officially penalized for illegally selling human organs to foreigners.

   The Ministry of Health is also investigating claims that 17 Japanese tourists each spent 595,000 yuan (87,000 dollars) for liver or kidney transplants this year.

   'The hospital can fake their [the patients'] identities to fool the authorities,' an unnamed surgeon at one hospital told the newspaper, saying organ transplants were available to foreigners who could pay.

   However, locals are also willing to pay extra to avoid lengthy organ donor waiting lists.

   According to official figures, 2 million Chinese need organ transplants each year, but a shortage of donors meant that only 20,000 legal operations are performed.

   The financial news magazine Caijing reported Monday that there is a gap between current regulations - which insist on the informed consent of donors and regulate recipients - and reality. 'Organ brokers' regularly advertise on the internet, the magazine said, and some medical staff at hospitals advise patients to find their own source of organs to avoid lengthy waits.

   'Internal investigation by the ethics commissions of medical organizations, and external supervision by health departments, play a limited role in the contemporary medical system, making it hard to end abnormal behaviour in the organ transplant field,' the Caijing article said.

   Previously, China had been condemned by human rights groups for allowing the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners without prior consent.

   The government now stipulates that informed consent must be given in all donor cases, but there are ongoing concerns about the source of organs procured by brokers.