(Clearwisdom.net) Since the revelation of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) atrocity of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners in March 2006, the international community has widely condemned it. The independent investigative report on this matter released by the Canadian investigation team re-confirmed the existence of such unprecedented evil on Earth. Besides the general public who expressed their indignation, the medical community has also increasingly recognized the CCP atrocity, and discussed the actions they should take in dealing with this situation.

A forum on the CCP live organ harvesting at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis

On the morning of April 25, 2007, a forum was held at the Steinberg Auditorium in the famous Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, with the theme being "Controversies in Organ Transplantation, Training Transplant Surgeons." The forum was jointly hosted by the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values at the Washington University School of Medicine and Student Chapter of Physicians for Human Rights. The major speakers invited included deputy director of Program for Human Rights and Medicine at the University of Minnesota, Kirk Allison, Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine and chair of the ethics committee at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Stephen Lefrak, and assistant professor of Surgery at the School of Medicine at Washington University, Niraj M. Desai. Dozens of hospital-based surgeons in the audience listened attentively to their speeches.

Mr. Allison outlined the situation in China where there has been a mass seizure of organs from prisoners. He also cited the evidence and conclusion from the investigative report done by Canadian investigation team David Kilgour and David Matas, to discuss the relationship between the CCP's harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners and the massive surge of organ transplants in recent years in China.

Professor Lefrak discussed how medical institutions should deal with such inhuman acts as harvesting organs, and whether training should be stopped for organ transplant surgeons from China, the strengthening of medical ethics education and morality for those organ transplant surgeons who come for training, and whether or not the strengthening of medical ethics education for doctors in a dictatorial system as in China plays any role for stopping the harvesting of organs from living people, and other topics.

The organizer of the forum, Professor Ira Kodner, is director of the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values at Washington University School of Medicine. He had attended a forum held by Falun Gong practitioners to expose the CCP harvesting of organs from living people in August 2006. This time, he especially invited several Falun Gong practitioners to observe the forum.

After the forum, Falun Gong practitioner Carol said that she was glad to see people pay attention to the matter of the CCP harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. This was a spontaneous action taken by those in medical community who have learned about the facts. It is very important to spread facts about the true situation and take active measures in the medical community, and it is also conducive to putting an end to the atrocity soon.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Su said that several dozen surgeons from the hospital who attended the forum showed great concerns over this matter. No one questioned the validity of the CCP harvesting of organs from living people. As for these professionals, it is obvious that the body of evidence and data point to the same conclusion. People are now discussing what they can do, and how they should do it. This is a good trend. She hopes that people can take quicker and more resolute measures to help stop the CCP atrocity.