Purpose

Based on allegations that China has harvested organs from prisoners of conscience in extrajudicial killings on a large scale, this report evaluates China's official organ sources–executed death-row prisoners and voluntary donors–and the extent to which these sources can account for the number of transplants performed in China.

Method

We examined industry policies, media reports, and hundreds of hospitals surrounding official organ sources. We also compared the quantities produced of these claimed sources to the minimum system-wide transplant capacity (see abstract #252175) to determine the gap of organs that cannot be accounted for.

Results

The number of death-row executions is treated as a state secret in China. International organizations estimate China's executions at a few thousand each year; the number of executions has also decreased since the year 2000. Though the Chinese regime announced a reform in 2015 to stop using organs from death-row prisoners, the change merely recategorizes death-row prisoners as regular public donations.

There have been very few organ donations in China because it is culturally taboo. The number of voluntary donations remained at zero by 2003. China first piloted an organ donation system in 19 provinces and cities in March 2010. The first donation in Shanghai took place in August 2013; at the time, there were 11 approved national transplant centers there.

The creation of the China Organ Transplant Response System (COTRS) was announced at the end of August 2013. In November 2015, Huang Jiefu, chair of the National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee, indicated that COTRS still had not produced donations on a meaningful scale. A phone survey ending in June 2017 showed that most transplant hospitals could not access COTRS.

The officially claimed organ sources include brain-dead donors, donations after cardiac death (DCD), and living relative donors. However, China has no brain death legislation; as of 2010, there were 60 total donations after brain death. There were 700 living relative kidney transplants in China between 1972 and the end of 2006, representing 1.5% of all renal transplants. In addition, a kidney broker stated in a court testimony that the vast majority of relative donors are falsified.

Conclusion

The officially claimed organ sources can account for only a small portion of the minimum system-wide transplant capacity. The communist regime has never acknowledged extrajudicial killing for organs, which occurs on a far larger scale than death-row executions and voluntary donations.

CITATION INFORMATION: Li D., Yin G. Organ Transplant Abuse in China (4): Organ Sources Am J Transplant. 2017;17 (suppl 3).

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