The attack comes a week after the announcement that China would scale down it's practice of taking organs for transplant from executed criminals. Seen by many Chinese as a chance for the deceased criminal to "give something back" to Chinese society, concerns have been raised over a fairly obvious question: If they don't come from criminals, were are organs for transplant going to come from?
For a long time, internal organs have been supplied by so-called "prisoners of conscience", a term commonly used to describe those detained for their religious beliefs. Such detainees were able to supply enough organs for the Tianjin Oriental Transplant Center for an estimated 2,000 liver transplants a year, despite no public system of organ donation having been established. From 2003 to 2007, only 130 official voluntary organ donations were made, with a recorded number of nearly 20,000 organ transplants were made in 2005.
As the value for organs increased, so did the incidence of hastily arranged executions. Zheng Chang Jie was executed in July, but his family was never notified. The secrecy in which executions are carried out in China doesn't make it clear if his organs were harvested and sold, and the fact that his body was cremated following his execution makes it difficult to prove conclusively.
The practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners became widespread in the mid-1980's, and from 1999, organs collected from criminals accounted for around 90% of all organ donations. With almost 300, 000 people on the waiting list for organ transplants, only 100,000 operations are approved each year. The shortfall has led to a black market in organ trade, were "an organ is sold every hour".
In 2012, reporters from The Guardian contacted a trafficker who advertised his services under the banner "donate a kidney, buy and iPad!". He offered a going rate of £2,500 for a kidney, adding that the operation could be performed in 10 days. Distrust in the medical system is largely to blame, with organizations like the Chinese Red Cross were charging local hospitals as much as $16,300 for each successful transplant that was organized by them. Little wonder that Chinese people don't believe that when a kidney or a liver is donated, that it will go to the person who needs it most.
The Chinese government plans to end donations from executed prisoners within two year, and while it may well improve the China's image overseas, it will only make organs more valuable, and more tempting to those who haven't gotten their slice of the Chinese Dream.
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