Editor—On 27 June 2001 Thomas Diflo, a New York transplant surgeon, Wang Guoqui, a Chinese doctor who had taken kidneys and skin from recently executed prisoners, and Harry Wu of the Laogai Association gave evidence to the committee on international relations of the United States House of Representatives in Washington, DC. They noted that in China, organs are taken from recently executed prisoners, to be transplanted into recipients from the United States, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, and other countries. The recipients pay $17 000-40 000 each. It was not known whether the executed prisoners had given their consent.
In China prisoners can be executed for crimes such as rape, robbery, drug dealing, and black market activities, in addition to murder. It is extremely rare for those accused not to be found guilty. As soon as the prisoners are sentenced, blood samples are taken for grouping. The prisoners' appeals are hardly ever upheld. They find this out only when they are taken to be shot. Ambulances wait at the site of the executions, and the fresh organs from healthy young persons are harvested, to be transplanted into recipients from abroad.
The World Medical Association made declarations condemning these practices at Brussels in 1985 (on the grounds that this was commercial exploitation of human organs), at Madrid in 1987 (on the grounds that doctors should not participate and that it was not known if the executed prisoners had given consent to the use of their organs), and at Stockholm in 1994, when the BMA had rejoined the World Medical Association (on the same grounds as the 1987 declaration).
In Beijing, in 1998, Delon Humann, the secretary of the World Medical Association, Anders Milton, its chairman, and Dr T J Moon of the Korean Medical Association, reached an agreement with the Chinese Medical Association that these practices were undesirable and that they would investigate them jointly, with a view to stopping them. Nevertheless, in 2000, the Chinese reneged on these undertakings and refused to cooperate. This lucrative and immoral trade continues unabated. One is entitled to ask whether any British patients have visited China to receive transplant from executed prisoners, and what the international medical community can do to stop these practices?