China death row organ donor scandal exposed
Let’s say you – a highly authoritarian leader – are in charge of a gigantic country with a population of over one billion, which means there are a lot of citizens in need of well working organs, but who has one major problem: almost nobody is willing to donate organs voluntarily because of religion.
What do you do?
Executed prisoners in China are being stripped of their kidneys, livers and hearts in a practice so widespread that two out of three transplant operations rely on organs removed from condemned criminals.
The China Daily newspaper, in a first public acknowledgement of the reliance on prisoners for body parts, said that 65 per cent of donations came from death row. Huang Jiefu, the country’s Deputy Health Minister, said that condemned prisoners were “definitely not a proper source for organ transplants”.
Despite a 2007 regulation barring trading in human tissue, demand for new organs far exceeds legitimate supply.
Only about 130 people have signed up to donate organs since 2003, according to research by Professor Chen Zhonghua at the Institute of Organ Transplantation, Tongji Hospital.
Ah, the lovely nature of authoritarian regimes who have no morals whatsoever.
Hey, when will the United Nations start criticizing China instead of obsessing over Israel?
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Probably when they’re reformed to make them truly independent rather than a marionette with strings to be pulled by its members, and especially the permanent Security Council ones (including the United States). Let us not forget who else has a seat on that council: China.
The trouble with the United Nations is that the veto power of its permanent members effectively stops the organization from taking any real action. If something is done that a member doesn’t like, it is stopped. I guarantee you that yelling at Israel is the only thing the UN will ever do to that country. If it tries to take sanctions, the U.S. will stop it with a veto. As will Russia with any real action against itself or a Middle Eastern country.