This article was first published in February 2010
(Minghui.org) In 2006, The Epoch Times newspaper broke a stunning story about what is undoubtedly one of the most horrible atrocities to be committed by any government, not only in modern times, but in all of recorded history. As documented in the investigative report, "Bloody Harvest," by noted human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region David Kilgour, there is overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Communist regime's chilling role in systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners, harvesting their organs while they are alive, and making huge profits from doing so. In response to the international outcry, the Chinese regime has attempted to explain away one of the main pieces of circumstantial evidence--the meteoric rise in the number of organ transplantations in recent years and the extremely short wait times in a culture notoriously averse to organ donation--by stating that it has harvested organs from executed criminals after their deaths. Faced with undeniable evidence, it has attempted to escape culpability for a monstrous atrocity by admitting to a lesser crime. In this report, we will show evidence that directly contradicts this claim and lends further credence to the serious charges leveled against the Chinese regime.
VII. Sources of extra organs
If the annual number of organs from death row inmates is around 6,000, and with the number of relatives willing to be donors very limited between 2003 and 2006, where did all the extra organs come from to supply the more than 12,000--and as many as 20,000--organ transplants per year?
1. Features that likely characterize the new source of organs
The number of people that make up the donor supply base is larger than the number of current death row inmates.
Because this is an illegal undertaking, the donors need to be readily accessible and just as readily hidden once outsiders discover the new source of organs.
Despite the illegalities involved, the participants bear no legal consequences. In other words, current government policies tolerate the exploitation of this source of organs. Harvesting organs from this source would be "turning waste into a useful thing."
These individuals need to be held in large numbers in given locations to increase the probability of organ matching.
Last but not least, doctors bear no legal responsibility or moral obligation for killing these people for their organs.
2. Illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners - a new source of organs
Using death row organs requires legal authorization. Hospitals cannot casually go to a prison and harvest organs from death row inmates. But what about a group that is outside the justice system and is being suppressed and defamed by the government? And what if there is an illegally detained sizable population of that group? The possibility of this group being an ideal live organ supply base is very high. In particular, organ transplant hospitals for the army and armed police forces would view this as an ideal source. So which suppressed group fits this category?
Since the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20, 1999, a large number of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained. These detained practitioners were quickly viewed as an ideal source of organs because:
They fall outside the justice system. Many practitioners are sent to forced labor camps without due process. Many practitioners who go to appeal for Falun Gong do not reveal their names and address to protect their families as well as to avoid implicating their workplaces. These practitioners are detained in large, concentrated numbers.
They represent a huge supply base. Practitioners are detained for no other reason than to be persecuted and executed. As a result, the waiting period for organs can be shortened to 1-2 weeks--a most attractive feature that has allowed China to become a center for global organ transplant tourism.
They are available for live organ donations. Live organs are always far better than organs from cadavers and are always the most sought-after by overseas patients who are willing to pay a premium. Use of live organs in transplants also increases the survival rate of patients; this means a live source is attractive to Chinese transplant doctors who are interested in furthering their careers.
The quality of their organs is very high. Contrary to most death row inmates who are addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs, Falun Gong practitioners are required to refrain from such substances and are generally very healthy. In particular, young practitioners from rural areas are thought to have become a key target for live organ harvesting.
3. Uncertain whereabouts of many Falun Gong practitioners
Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-led campaign against Falun Gong started, practitioners have regularly visited local and Beijing government appeal offices or unfurled banners in Tiananmen Square to draw the world's attention to the violations of Falun Gong practitioners' human rights. The report "The Journey of Falun Dafa: A Bright But Arduous Path" on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website states, "According to internal information from the Public Security Bureau in Beijing, by the end of April 2001 there had been a total of 830,000 arrests of Falun Gong practitioners for appealing in Beijing for the right to practice Falun Dafa. This number does not include those who refused to give their names or were not recorded by the police at the time of arrest." [38] In its "2008 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)," the U.S. Department of State stated, "Some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in RTL camps, while Falun Gong sources overseas placed the number even higher." [39]
The CCP adds "implication of workplace" to the ancient practice of "implication of the nine generations of a family"
A phenomenon worth mentioning here is that the CCP has adopted a vicious implication policy in its persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Members of a practitioner's family can be fired from their jobs; supervisors at the person's workplace can be punished; co-workers can lose their bonuses; in some cases, even local government officials can lose their positions. Through this policy, the CCP isolates Falun Gong practitioners and turns everyone against them. As a result, others are more willing to participate in the persecution. Those who previously sympathized with Falun Gong become resentful when they lose their bonuses, and local government officials do everything they can to prevent Falun Gong practitioners from going to Beijing to appeal so they can save their positions. Local public security members have been dispatched to Beijing to stop local practitioners from appealing to the Central Office of Letters and Calls; the Beijing Office of the local government has turned into a police station to arrest and detain Falun Gong practitioners who have gone to Beijing.
Many Falun Gong practitioners who refused to reveal their names and addresses went missing
Many practitioners who went to appeal refused to reveal their names and addresses to the authorities. Based on practitioners' sharing articles on the Minghui website, resisting the demands to reveal identity and location became a common practice. What has happened to these practitioners? Many of them went missing and likely were detained in large concentration camps. In hindsight, the detention of these practitioners in large numbers would have helped facilitate large scale live organ harvesting.
In their book, Bloody Harvest, The killing of the Falun Gong for their organs, authors David Matas and David Kilgour interviewed many Falun Gong practitioners around the world who had been detained in China. These practitioners all mentioned that they had met many practitioners in detention centers who refused to reveal their names and addresses, and they eventually went missing. At the same time, many of the missing practitioners' families did not know that these practitioners had gone to appeal for Falun Gong and therefore had no idea of their whereabouts. The harsh reality is they do not know where to find their loved ones.
Guo Guoting, a Chinese lawyer living overseas, confirmed that one of his clients, Huang Xiong, whom he represented while he was in Shanghai, was in a similar situation. Huang Xiong went missing from his dorm in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and his whereabouts remain unknown.
In "New Leads in the Investigation of the Sujiatun Concentration Camp," a practitioner stated, "After December 20, 2000, the number of practitioners sent to detention centers suddenly increased to dozens or even over a hundred each day, whereas previously only about one dozen practitioners would be sent there... All practitioners were assigned a number... Within a few days the cells were full. The guards interrogated them each day and asked for their names. They used electric batons and other forms of torture on the practitioners and also encouraged the inmates to beat the practitioners. Most of the practitioners still refused to tell their names. The guards finally stopped asking and said, 'Ok, if you refuse to tell me, I'll send you to a place where you will tell.'
"In early 2001, groups of practitioners were sent away in big buses in the early morning every other day. An 18-year-old girl from Shandong Province shared the same cell with me. Her number was K28. One morning her number was called by mistake. She got on the bus but later returned. She said all of the practitioners were being taken to northeastern China. Later, the guards openly told us that they were sending the practitioners to northeastern China. During that period, many of them were sent there from Beijing." [40]
Existence of "Concentration Camps"
An insider who worked in a mainland Procuratorate once told us that no forced labor camp or prison in China would detain an inmate who did not have a name or address for long because they could not complete the registration process. These inmates would be transferred to other locations.
Then what happened to those missing Falun Gong practitioners? In March 2006, a whistleblower alerted the world to the possibility of live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners at the Sujiatun Detention Center in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. Thus, a potential new source of organs was identified.
Shortly afterward, the word "Concentration Camp" began to appear in media reports to describe the facilities where a large number of Falun Gong practitioners were detained.
According to practitioners who were released from the detention centers and the forced labor camps, some detained practitioners who were extremely firm in their belief and refused to be "transformed" were transferred to unknown locations. The existence of the concentration camps provided a possible clue to their whereabouts.
Military-controlled concentration camps
Since the judicial system cannot accept inmates without names or addresses, based on the CCP's usual practice, they would likely let the military take over these cases. According to sources inside the CCP, concentration camps are directly linked to military-controlled areas.
After the allegation of live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners was made public in March 2006, a senior military doctor in the logistics service in the army in Shenyang Military Zone wrote to The Epoch Times and revealed that there were several dozen of such concentration camps around China. He further reminded the outside world to pay attention to military facilities, because organ transplants were being administrated by the military, implying that many military facilities were being used as concentration camps. [41]
The advantages of having the military in charge of the source of organs will be elaborated on in later sections.
4. Blood testing of detained Falun Gong practitioners
Some Chinese prisons have a regulation to provide "periodic physical exams" for inmates. In reality that is hard to carry out. However, the health checklist for Falun Gong inmates is different from the one used for regular inmates. According to a 2004 Xinhuanet website report on the Shanghai Tilanqiao Prison, common physical exam items for regular inmates included "taking blood pressure, listening to the heart and lungs, palpating the liver and spleen area, and taking chest X-rays," which would cost roughly 60 yuan. [42] Blood tests are not done routinely on regular inmates. For detained practitioners, on the other hand, blood tests, which are a key step in organ matching, were very common.
In July 2009, during the taping of "Between Life and Death," New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV) interviewed several practitioners who had undergone such blood tests during their detention.
Ms. Gan Na, who currently lives in Toronto, Canada, was from Beijing. She was a former customs official at the Beijing Airport. In 2001, when she was detained for the third time at the Xin'an Women's Forced Labor Camp, she was given a blood test, X-rays, an electrocardiograph test, and eye exams. She told NTDTV, "It seemed very strange to me at the time. The guards at the forced labor camp had never treated us like we were human, yet we were given this thorough physical exam. It felt very strange."
Ms. Zhang Yijie, former director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the International Division of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC), was detained seven times for practicing Falun Gong. The last time she was detained was in June 2001, when she was held at the Beijing Women's Forced Labor Camp. Ms. Zhang said, "MOFTEC used to offer cadres one physical exam every six months. For a routine liver function exam, usually they took a small tube of blood. The amount of blood they took was pretty consistent. But they took more than the usual amount of blood for the blood test in the forced labor camp. We all asked why they took so much blood."
In January 2000, Ms. Zou Yuyun from Guangzhou was taken to Chatou Women's Forced Labor Camp in Guangzhou, where she was detained for 22 months. After she was released from the labor camp, she was arrested and detained in five different brainwashing centers. Ms. Zou told NTDTV, "I was eventually transferred to the brainwashing center in the Tianhe District in Guangzhou. The doctor there took me to the hospital specifically for a very thorough physical exam. They did an electroencephalograph test, and, of course, a blood test, on me."
In Bloody Harvest, authors Matas and Kilgour also interviewed several Falun Gong practitioners who had been detained in China regarding the blood test issue. The blood testing and the physical exams are a puzzling issue for those who had firsthand experience. On the one hand, practitioners were subjected to inhumane torture and mistreatment while in detention. They were pressured to denounce Falun Gong and to sign statements to quit the practice. Since the "transformation" rate is directly linked to the political accomplishments of the local government, torture is commonly used on practitioners, many of whom have been tortured to death. On the other hand, the authorities also carried out systematic blood testing and physical exams on practitioners. Many practitioners have mentioned that the blood testing specifically targeted Falun Gong practitioners. What is more suspicious is that if, indeed, they found any health problem during the physical exam, the authorities would leave that practitioner alone instead of providing medical treatment. In other words, the physical exam was used to find healthy practitioners.
So far we have only gathered information on blood testing in forced labor camps and prisons. We have no information on the practitioners who were put in concentrated detention in undisclosed locations.
5. Detained Falun Gong practitioners - a reservoir for large-scale matching and live organ harvesting
We mentioned earlier that, in principle, in any given location at any given time, the organs from executed death row inmates can only be matched with the patients in that specific location at that specific time. Soon after death row inmates are executed, the organs are no longer usable. As an organ source, they have limitations, because executions take place in different locations at different times. Without an organ sharing system, death row organ matching is a "small sampling" process.
Detained Falun Gong practitioners, on the contrary, can be matched multiple times until a proper match is found. They are a "reserve resource." At the same time, a large number of them have been detained in concentration in several undisclosed locations in China, so they are also a "large sampling resource."
More importantly, the harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners provides an explanation for all the unique features of the organ transplant market in China between 2003 and 2006.
6. Bypassing "the courts" in the handling of Falun Gong practitioners to facilitate organ harvesting
A key player in using organs from executed death row inmates is the court, which is left out of the process in handling of Falun Gong practitioners, many of whom have been sent to forced labor camps or detained in concentration camps without due process. In addition, CCP authorities discourage Chinese lawyers from representing Falun Gong practitioners, thereby cutting out the judicial system. The practice of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners thus bypasses the courts and is handled directly between the hospitals and the detention facilities. The consequences are grave:
Without the involvement of the courts, Falun Gong practitioners potentially become a large, unrestricted source of organs.
Without court involvement, hospitals or organ intermediaries deal with the detention facilities directly, without the need to go through any legal procedures or the inconvenience of having to harvest the organ at the site of an execution. The process is much more efficient .
Without court involvement, the perpetrators are worry free. Going through legal procedures means that cases are handled out in the open, subject to restrictions from the outside as well as the families of the donors. The fact that the whereabouts of detained Falun Gong practitioners are unknown to their families makes them easy targets.
A point of clarification: The lack of court involvement only means that there is no legal protection for Falun Gong practitioners while they are being persecuted. It does not mean that the courts have not participated in the live organ harvesting.
Based on available media reports, we have illustrated the following flowchart, which shows the process of live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners:
7. Live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners follows the "military driven model"
A key feature in the harvesting of organs from living practitioners is that the source of organs is controlled by the military and the participating hospitals are dominated by the military or those that have close ties to the military. Due to the nature of military security, the truth is concealed from the outside world.
China has a vast military medical system. There is the General Hospital of the PLA, and each military medical university has its own affiliated hospital. The various branches of the military all have their own hospitals. Organ transplantation is one of the most rapidly developing fields in the military hospitals. Zhang Yanling, Minister of Health of the General Logistics Department of the PLA and former president of the Second Military Medical University, was quoted in a December 17, 2008, article on the Xinhuanet website: "In 1978, there were only three hospitals in the military that could perform kidney transplants. Now there are 40 hospitals in the military that can perform liver, kidney, heart, lung, and multiple organ transplants. This is one quarter of the national total." [43]
The most important enabler for the big leap in military organ transplants has been the control of organ resources.
Life Week magazine reported in April 2006: "98 percent of China's supply of organs is controlled by systems outside the Ministry of Health." In fact, whether it is harvesting organs from executed death row inmates or the harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners, military hospitals, including armed police hospitals, have the advantage. The non-military hospitals that do large-scale organ transplants all have close ties to military hospitals. In many cases their organ transplant surgeons are from military hospitals.
Military and Armed Police Forces hospitals, as well as hospitals along China's coastline, are the primary impetus behind live organ harvesting
After enjoying rapid growth over a short period of time, the former organ transplant center in the Tianjin No. 1 Central Hospital changed its name to the Oriental Organ Transplant Center, which is the largest in Asia. In 2003, Shen Zhongyang founded the "Liver Transplant Research Institute of the Armed Police Forces" in the General Hospital of Armed Police Forces in Beijing and became its first director. The fact that Shen Zhongyang (and the several transplant facilities he manages) has ready access to organ supplies is largely because this facility is part of the armed police forces.
Shi Bingyi is another key figure that is very active in China's organ transplant community and often in the media spotlight. He is the director of the Organ Transplant Center of the PLA, which is located in the General Hospital of the General Staff of the PLA, also known as the 309th Hospital.
In Bloody Harvest, Matas and Kilgour interviewed several patients who went to China for organ transplants. The surgeons of these patients all had military backgrounds. One of the patients was admitted at the Shanghai No. 1 People's Hospital. His surgeon was Dr. Tan Jianming, who is the chief surgeon of the Fuzhou General Hospital of the Nanjing Military Region (formerly known as the 93rd Hospital). Tan also does surgeries at the PLA's 85th Hospital of the Nanjing Military Region in Shanghai.
Another patient went first to Huashan Hospital in Shanghai (affiliated with Fudan University) for a liver transplant. He was placed under the care of Qian Jianmin, deputy director of the liver center at Huashan Hospital. When no matching organ could be found after several days, Qian suggested that he be transferred to Changzheng Hospital in Shanghai, which is affiliated with Second Military Medical University, saying that it was easier to get organs there. A matching liver was found for the patient on the day he transferred to Changzheng Hospital.
The authors also interviewed a patient who went to the Taiping People's Hospital in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, for a kidney transplant. His surgeon was Dr. Gao Wei. Taiping People's Hospital is a non-military general hospital, but Dr. Gao Wei is also a doctor at the Kidney Transplant Department in Zhujiang Hospital, which is affiliated with First Military Medical University. Dr. Gao is also a part-time surgeon at the Shenzhen Armed Police Forces Coastguard Hospital in Guangdong Province.
Sound of Hope Radio interviewed Dr. Peng Xuemei in September 2009. Dr. Peng works at the Anesthesiology Department in the Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Hospital and assists in organ transplant surgeries. Dr. Peng revealed that the hospital had many channels through which it could get organs. She said, "In many cases, Nanfang Hospital would get the kidneys first and then send them to our hospital. That's why I said there are many channels. But we can't discuss this openly." Nanfang Hospital is the first affiliated hospital of Southern Medical University, which is the former First Military Medical University, which was handed over to the Guangdong provincial government in 2004.
In August 2008, the Minister of Health in China launched the "Chinese Scientific Registry of Kidney Transplantation," or CSRKT (www.csrkt.org). Its data center is run by the 309th Hospital. This gives us a clear idea of the role military hospitals play in China's organ transplant community.
As China became the center for global organ transplant tourism, hospitals along China's coastline were particularly favored for their location. Having attracted a growing number of patients, they needed to develop more channels for organ supplies. The organ intermediaries for these hospitals would do all they could to establish close ties to military hospitals or hospitals with a military background.
Although the outside world knows little about how the military conducts live organ harvesting, the active roles the military and armed police forces hospitals play in the organ transplant market and their advantage over organ supplies is the result of the control it has over the concentration camps and associated organ sources.
8. Additional open questions
Story behind the "Kidney for Sale" advertisement
While on the topic of organ resources, some readers may have seen a "Kidney for Sale" advertisement posted on utility poles. How big of a market can these donors, who are advertising one of their kidneys to make a living, create?
First of all, this type of organ trade is illegal. Those involved can be sentenced to jail. The potential kidney sellers are taking advantage of a legal loophole regarding live donors among relatives. In this case, the seller would need to forge a document to prove that the donor and the recipient are related. It is risky business, but the high profits have driven this widespread behavior. On January 14, 2004, the Xinhuanet website posted a report from the Morning News. The report said that restrooms in hospital wards were where most of the "Kidney for Sale" ads were posted. One nurse told the reporter, "There are 'Kidney for Donation,' 'Kidney for Sale' ads all over the place. They cannot be washed off with water and have to scraped off. There is nothing we can do to stop them." [44]
Another question is how many of these people successfully sold their kidneys. In reality, the probability of organ matching remains the biggest issue. Experts have stated, "The chances for two complete strangers to meet by accident and have matching organs are rare, unless the parties have done good preparation prior to hospital tests. But there exists another hurdle--no Chinese doctor would encourage or even get involved with this type of underground trade because it is illegal." [45]
Some doctors stated that the costs to harvest organs from executed death row inmates are low, and the process takes only a few minutes. In addition, there is no need to pay the donors, nor is there a need for post-procurement medical care for the donors (similar in the cases of live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners). On the other hand, the cost to purchase a kidney from a private seller would be much higher. Not only does it cost between 10,000 and 30,000 yuan for one kidney, post-organ donation medical care, such as a hospital stay, also needs to be provided to the seller. In an interview with Huashang Newspaper in late 2004, Wu Gang, associate professor of the Organ Transplant Department at the First Hospital of China Medical University, told the reporter, "To rashly purchase kidneys illegally from total strangers solely based on ads is to risk losing money and wasting time on unusable organs." [46]
We should state that illegal kidney sales do exist, and there are people who have obtained kidneys through this channel. Nevertheless, it cannot be a sizable organ resource. Even the Chinese government admitted that the growth in China's organ transplant market is largely driven by the huge profits in this market. The introduction of private sellers' organs would increase costs, especially in comparison to organs harvested for free with no post-procurement medical care, and reduce the hospital's bottom line. AAlthough "Kidney for Sale" ads are found in many areas, private kidney sellers as organ resources cannot drive the "vigorous development" of China's organ transplant market. More importantly, between 2003 and 2006, detained Falun Gong practitioners provided a better source of organs. Wu Gang also revealed in the 2004 interview, "There is no market for those 'Kidney for Sale' ads because currently there are plenty of kidneys in Shenyang City!"
The China International Transplantation Network Assistance Center, or CITNAC, which is under the First Hospital of China Medical University, claimed on its website that the shortest waiting period for a kidney was one week, with an average waiting period of less than a month. If the surgery failed, a second surgery could be scheduled within a week. It also claimed that the waiting period for a liver was less than one month. (See Appendix 7) Where did these abundant organs come from? Obviously not from the "Kidney for Sale" ads posted on utility poles or in hospital restrooms. We also should note that, between 2003 and 2006, liver transplants increased significantly while few "Liver for Sale" ads were seen.
Starting in 2007, the source of organs from large-scale harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners began to disappear or decline. In order to develop a new source of organs, the Chinese government has launched vigorous propaganda campaigns to promote live donors among relatives. This might have opened a door for forged relationships and stimulated more rampant underground kidney trading, but this is a different issue. The focus of this report is on the period between 2003 and 2006, when China's organ transplant market skyrocketed.
Can the increase in the number of organ transplant hospitals drive the increase in organ transplants?
Some may wonder whether the big increase in the number of organ transplant hospitals was the cause of the big increase in the number of organ transplants. This is not the case. The shortage of organ supplies is the greatest bottleneck for organ transplants. If the supply of organs could not even satisfy a smaller number of hospitals, the increase in the number of hospitals would only worsen the situation instead of creating more donors. Furthermore, according to the estimation formula we discussed in previous sections, the number of organs from executed death row inmates is fixed. An increase in the number of hospitals simply cannot produce more donors.
[38] Clearwisdom.net, "The Journey of Falun Dafa: A Bright But Arduous Path," http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/9/26/52823.html
[39] U.S. Department of State, 2008 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau), February 25, 2009, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/eap/119037.htm
[40] Clearwisdom.net, "New Leads in the Investigation of the Sujiatun Concentration Camp," http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2006/3/22/71075.html
[41] The Epoch Times, "Military Doctor Reveals the Official Process of the CCP's Stealing and Selling of Organs from Live Falun Gong Practitioners," http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/6/4/30/n1303902.htm
[42] Xinhua Net, "Hearing of Commutation Cases Is a Beneficial Exploration," http://news.xinhuanet.com/comments/2004-06/10/content_1518473.htm
[43] Xinhua Net, "Thirty Years of a Big Leap in Chinese Military Health Care Condensed in Seven Groups of Data," http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-12/17/content_10520230.htm
[44] Morning News, "Kidney for Sale Ads Taking Advantage of Internet, Shanghai Government Trying to Cut Underground Chain of Kidney Trade," http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2004-01/14/content_1274416.htm
[45] Sina News Center, "Illegal Kidney Trading Rampant in Shanghai, Black Market Built on Legal Loophole," http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2004-01-14/15361586708s.shtml
[46] Huashang Newspaper, "Hospitals Infested with Organ for Sale Ads, Doctor Claims Shenyang Has Plenty of Kidneys," http://news.hsw.cn/gb/news/2004-12/24/content_1520547.htm
Category: Organ Harvesting
