Hundreds of well-off Japanese and other nationals are turning to China's burgeoning human organ transplant industry, paying tens of thousands of pounds for livers and kidneys, which in some cases have been harvested from executed prisoners and sold to hospitals.
When Kenichiro Hokamura's kidneys failed, he faced a choice: wait for a transplant or go online to check out rumours of organs for sale. As a native of Japan, where just 40 human organs for transplant have been donated since 1997, the businessman, 62, says it was no contest. "There are 100 people waiting in this prefecture alone. I would have died before getting a donor." Still, he was astonished by just how easy it was.
Ten days after contacting a Japanese broker in China two months ago, he was lying on an operating table in a Shanghai hospital receiving a new kidney. "It was so fast, I was scared," he says. The "e-donor" was an executed man; the price: 6.8m yen (about £33,000).
Beijing does not reveal how many people it executes, but analysts estimate as many as 8,000 people are killed each year. Reports of Chinese authorities removing organs from executed prisoners have been circulating since the mid-1980s, when the development of a drug called Cyclosoporine-A made transplants a newly viable option for patients.
Until now, most of the evidence linking executions to the organ trade has been anecdotal and has not been helped by a lack of transparency in the Chinese criminal justice system or the secrecy that surrounds prison executions.
A recovering Mr Hokamura claims he is concerned with where his new kidney came from. "My translator said my donor was a young executed prisoner," says the businessman. "The donor was able to provide a contribution to society so what's wrong with that?"
"It was cheap," adds Mr Hokamura, now back in Japan. "I can always earn more money."
Rumours of problems with follow-up care and patients dying within one to two years of returning from China have failed to stem the tide.
A single broker has helped more than a hundred Japanese people go to China for transplants since 2004 and the trade is growing. Official figures almost surely underestimate the numbers of people, many of whom fly without government knowledge. Mr Hokamura says his family is so pleased that his daughter has put his experience on the internet. In her blog she says she feels sorry for others to have to wait years for transplants and provides a link to a support centre in Shanghai. "Other people should know about this," she writes.
Sources say the cost of a kidney transplant runs to £37,000 and for a liver up to £88,000. Mr Hokamura paid another million yen for transport costs. There is little attempt to conceal the origins of the organs, the bulk of which are taken from executed prisoners.
UPI is also reporting on the story, but its article seems to rely exclusively on The Independent. I don't know if anyone else has done corroborating research.
Also, is The Independent a reputable news organization? I'm not too familiar with British newspapers.
She did not answer, which is the damnedest way of winning an argument I know of.
Jew wrote:
Also, is The Independent a reputable news organization? I'm not too familiar with British newspapers.
It's a major newspaper. It has a bit of a reputation for being, well, independant. It'll often have a completely different front page story to all the other papers for example. It's also somewhat left wing. As far as I know it's a trustworthy as any other major paper.
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Is anyone really surprised by this? Really? Anyone?
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FORTY donated organs since 1997??? I didn't realise that Japanese culture was so against organ donations.
Well, as long as the PRC continues executing droves of people for questionable reasons, at least some good can come of it.
If the money from the harvested organs went back to the executed person's family, maybe I may emphatise. But it's far more likely that the organs are being peddled by crooked officials.
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kheegan wrote:FORTY donated organs since 1997??? I didn't realise that Japanese culture was so against organ donations.
I'd like to know what is causing this in their culture, because it is quite disgraceful. Where's the honour in keeping your organs to yourself as you go to the grave when others could use them?
kheegan wrote:If the money from the harvested organs went back to the executed person's family, maybe I may emphatise. But it's far more likely that the organs are being peddled by crooked officials.
Why would it? At least as far as the Chinese are concerned, the man's being executed for being a criminal. Why should his family get something out of it? The Chinese officials arranging this probably almost think they are doing a good thing (and getting some money on the side).
I'd like to know what is causing this in their culture, because it is quite disgraceful. Where's the honour in keeping your organs to yourself as you go to the grave when others could use them?
Something religious, perhaps. AFAIK, Japanese aren't too deeply religious, but they do have their superstitions. If you believe your soul might just live on after death, you won't want anyone disturbing your body.
Besides, I don't exactly see everyone volunteering to give away their organs after their death anywhere.
It's probably the same irrational fear that keeps people from signing the organ donation thing on their drivers license application here. That being that doctors won't work as hard to save them because they want their sweet, juicy organs.
In any event, I don't see anything wrong with an executed prisoner getting their body harvested. Entirely seperate from whether their execution was just, mind you ...
Vympel wrote:
In any event, I don't see anything wrong with an executed prisoner getting their body harvested. Entirely seperate from whether their execution was just, mind you ...
Quoted for truth.
The issue here isn't the legality of this; it's legal under Chinese and Japanese law both, it seems. The ethics of this, on the other hand, are more questionable.
kheegan wrote:FORTY donated organs since 1997??? I didn't realise that Japanese culture was so against organ donations.
I'd like to know what is causing this in their culture, because it is quite disgraceful. Where's the honour in keeping your organs to yourself as you go to the grave when others could use them?
I don't know about the Japanese, but for the Chinese it's superstition about needing the body to be whole in order to have a whole body in the afterlife or somesuch. Donation rates for Malaysian Chinese are also quite low IIRC.
I don't know why people eager to make a point against religion keep on trumpeting the irreligiousness of the Japanese, they can be just as irrationally superstitious as anyone else, really.
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hmm...The Chinese got a pretty good gig going there for themselves. But now the question is can the people receiving the organs get the meds they need back in Japan(or whereever else they are from) since they technically didn't get a legal transplant?
On a semi related topic: Doesn't the Chinese government charge the prisoner for the cost of the bullets in the execution or is that just a myth?
Superstition gets as much a needed hounding from me as religion. The Japanese may have a lesser evil in the form of Shinto; that does not excuse this pitifully poor situation with regards to potentially life saving donations.
There's something wrong with the species when you actually have to think long and hard about whether to retain your organs when you become a corpse in the name of folklore mythos, or to give such valuable devices to those in need.
This situation is only new to me in that it's Japan and China, not India and Pakistan. I recall a documentary - one of the McIntyre undercover ones - that dealt with poor Indian and Pakistani families selling organs to pay their way in life, so rich people in far away lands could go on living that little longer or in more comfort. It would seem the practice is simply becoming more common and grey areas being found in the ethical dilemmas normally faced. I still believe donor cards should be mandatory as it should be a choice to strike yourself off the registry, not to be put on it.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:
There's something wrong with the species when you actually have to think long and hard about whether to retain your organs when you become a corpse in the name of folklore mythos, or to give such valuable devices to those in need.
It's a giant sacred cow that you aren't allowed to question organ donation of people as if it's some God given right for people not to give up their organs.
Personally, I don't know why the fuck organ donation is even optional. Can anyone think of a single possible justification for being able to deny your organs to someone after you die?
The Kernel wrote:
It's a giant sacred cow that you aren't allowed to question organ donation of people as if it's some God given right for people not to give up their organs.
Personally, I don't know why the fuck organ donation is even optional. Can anyone think of a single possible justification for being able to deny your organs to someone after you die?
Excluding preposterous notions that rely on unfalsifiable claims of a supernatural nature or other pseudoscientific theories on an afterlife?
No. None at all.
But remember, it's better to err on the side of caution and make sure your body is whole when you take that first step through the pearly gates into bliss than to consider a child may actually need your bone marrow to lead a full life.
Do these same people somehow ignore the fact that what once came from the ground, returns to the ground anyway? Your body is going to be a wormfeast and then the microbes will devour the rest. How does that ruffle your image in Heaven then?
Admiral Valdemar wrote:
But remember, it's better to err on the side of caution and make sure your body is whole when you take that first step through the pearly gates into bliss than to consider a child may actually need your bone marrow to lead a full life.
Well... I'm pretty sure bone marrow is somthing that cannot be donated after death, and it couldn't even be attempted unless you where already a known match for someone in need.
Do these same people somehow ignore the fact that what once came from the ground, returns to the ground anyway? Your body is going to be a wormfeast and then the microbes will devour the rest. How does that ruffle your image in Heaven then?
A lot of people buy sealed coffins guaranteed not to leak for very long periods of time specifically to avoid that being possible.
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Sea Skimmer wrote:
Well... I'm pretty sure bone marrow is somthing that cannot be donated after death, and it couldn't even be attempted unless you where already a known match for someone in need.
Any organ will be useless unless removed quickly and put on ice. Marrow is unique in that the cells can be stored for long periods of time after a simpler (post mortem) extraction, which is just as well, since the problems in finding a suitable antigenic match are in the hundreds of thousands to one or million to one, depending on ethnicity.
A lot of people buy sealed coffins guaranteed not to leak for very long periods of time specifically to avoid that being possible.
I guess if you're going to make money from other peoples' irrational beliefs, this would be a good bet too. Still, one day, that coffin will breach and whether it's nature's scavengers or an expanding Sol that consume the contents is another matter. It's all ridiculous when you consider the afterlife is for eternity, and the Earth is not long for this universe (relatively speaking).
Last edited by Admiral Valdemar on 2006-03-21 10:23pm, edited 1 time in total.
Generally, there is a lack of awareness in China about transplants. As in Japan, a cultural taboo, strongly related to Buddhist beliefs, has traditionally been associated with donating organs. The procedure is seen to make the body imperfect and, in some ways, it means the donor is being unfilial, even if the donation is to a family member.
Well that settles that: these people are irrational shitheads. Personally, I would be dubious about the quality guarantees on these organs: how do you know the guy didn't have his own health problems?
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The Kernel wrote:
Personally, I don't know why the fuck organ donation is even optional. Can anyone think of a single possible justification for being able to deny your organs to someone after you die?
I would say because your organs are basically treated like your property. As long as you have a will you are allowed to do as you please with all your money, property and other worldly posessions.
The Kernel wrote:
Personally, I don't know why the fuck organ donation is even optional. Can anyone think of a single possible justification for being able to deny your organs to someone after you die?
I would say because your organs are basically treated like your property. As long as you have a will you are allowed to do as you please with all your money, property and other worldly posessions.
But they aren't your property, you are not allowed to sell or transfer your organs onto anyone except for the organ donation program.
Not to mention that there is a compelling societal need that far outweighs the needs of the individual. The government routinely confiscates property from people for something as trivial as a highway and they can't take away something with no value to anyone but the organ donation program?
[quote="The Kernel]
But they aren't your property, you are not allowed to sell or transfer your organs onto anyone except for the organ donation program.
Not to mention that there is a compelling societal need that far outweighs the needs of the individual. The government routinely confiscates property from people for something as trivial as a highway and they can't take away something with no value to anyone but the organ donation program?[/quote]
Its part of your person thus making it yours. When you die your body basically becomes the property of your family to bury to cremate according to there wishes(or the wishes of a will)
Also isn't the reason you can't sell organs is because they want to push the donor system and have a fair distribution system? I'm sure if they allowed people to sell there organs there would be more people willing to give em up.
With Emiment Domain the person losing there property is compensated for the property they loss for the construction of the said highway. And even then there are usually tons of legal battles on whether the highway/park/sports center really needs to go there.
all that Playstation money going to good use 
