Foreign medical and legal specialists yesterday discussed legislative developments in their home countries on regulating organ transplants abroad and urged the Taiwanese government to recognize the seriousness of the organ-harvesting crimes perpetrated in China and to legislate against organ transplants using illicit or unknown organ sources.
In a round-table discussion organized by the Foundation of Medical Professionals Alliance in Taiwan, doctors and human rights advocates invited by the Taiwan International Care Association for Organ Transplants called any organ transplant done at the expense of another person’s life and “organ harvesting” undertaken without the consent of the organ providers “a crime against humanity.”
In the context of the growing global demand for organ transplants in recent years, illegal trafficking and trade of human organs and transplant tourism have raised serious concerns and caused raging controversies.
Among these issues, unethical organ-harvesting practices in China are a major problem that requires wider awareness and attention, the experts said.
This is especially true for Taiwanese, the association said, adding that data from the Department of Health showed that more than 88 percent, or 1,754, of Taiwanese patients who underwent organ transplants went to China for their operations between 2000 and 2011.
Not only do organs that come from questionable origins expose patients in Chinese hospitals to medical and legal risks, they might also have come from prisoners of conscience and executed prisoners, putting the patients in an ethical bind, the care association said.
Killed for Organs: China’s Secret State Transplant Business, a documentary about organ harvesting practices in China, was presented at the beginning of the meeting.
Jianchao Xu (徐建超), director for medical affairs with Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, said there was “an exponential increase [in organ transplants] in China in the first four years of the 1999-2007 period, and after that the number plateaued.”
The Chinese government criminalized Falun Gong and has incarcerated its practitioners since 1999, he said.
David Kilgour, former Canadian secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific and co-author of Bloody Harvest: Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China, referred to a case of a male Taiwanese patient in the book, saying that the patient went through eight antibody cross-matching tests before he finally found a matching pair.
According to the book, the Taiwanese national was aware of the fact that the organ had been taken from an unwilling executed prisoner.
Participants in the discussion expressed the hope that revealing the atrocities perpetrated in China can raise awareness among Taiwanese and that legislation would be passed to prevent unethical organ transplants abroad in the near future.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS