Transplant News Network: China Said to Sell Prisoners' Organs; Ruling in Japan Could Change Harvesting Procedures

China Said to Sell Prisoners' Organs;
Ruling in Japan Could Change Harvesting Procedures

CITY · June 15, 1998 · by TNN Medical Reporter Virginia Baskerville

Recent international news related to organ transplantation focused on transplant practices in China and Japan.

The U.S. House Government Reform and Oversight Committee heard reports in early June that China is selling the organs of condemned prisoners. UPI quoted a witness as telling the subcommittee that "he traveled to China and paid more than $100,000 for a kidney the doctors later told him had come from a prisoner who was executed later the same day." Although China has denied selling organs, the country admittedly harvests the organs of condemned prisoners but claims that the prisoners offer the organs voluntarily and that their families sometimes receive compensation. According to UPI, China does not have laws that regulate organ donation.
A court in Osaka, Japan, ordered Kansai Medical University to pay 200,000 yen to a mother who had demanded 15 million yen after her dying daughter's kidneys allegedly were illegally prepared for harvesting. Four days after the 29-year-old woman underwent brain surgery, the hospital staff inserted a catheter to ensure that her kidneys remained healthy; the patient died three days later, and her kidneys were removed after her heart stopped beating, Reuters news service reported. The judge ruled that "it is illegal for a doctor to harm the body of a living patient for any reason other than treatment" Reuters said. "The ruling is expected to affect the process by which kidneys are harvested from dead patients," the Daily Yomiyuri newspaper reported, according to Reuters.

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