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door Cinderella » zo 03 aug , 2008 6:59
door els » zo 03 aug , 2008 16:25
Organ transplants
A series of reports over recent years have suggested that organs are regularly extracted from executed prisoners in China to be sold for transplantation. In a recent example, the Guardiannewspaper (London) reported on 13 September 2005 that an unnamed Chinese cosmetics company was using skin harvested from the corpses of executed prisoners to develop beauty products for sale overseas. Amnesty International is unable to corroborate this story, but remains deeply concerned about continuing reports of such practices, some of which suggest that as many as 90 per cent of organs used in transplants in China come from executed prisoners.
Procurement of human organs based on commercial trading and without meaningful free and informed consent is contrary to World Health Organization guidelines on human organ procurement and transplantation. The involvement of transplantation surgeons in such procedures breaches ethical guidance of the international Transplantation Society and the World Medical Association.
Amnesty International has long called on China to ban such practices. In June 2005, the Chinese Health Minister, Huang Jiefu, announced that China planned to issue regulations which would ban the trade in human organs and reinforce the principles of voluntary donation and free and informed consent.
To Amnesty International’s knowledge, these regulations remain under discussion and have not yet been formally adopted. Given the cruel, inhuman and degrading nature of the death penalty, the organization considers that there will be few, if any, circumstances under which a prisoner facing imminent execution will be able to “voluntarily” give “free and informed consent” to having their organs extracted.
Amnesty International has long raised concerns that the use of lethal injection may facilitate the extraction of organs for transplant from death penalty prisoners. Such practices contravene international medical ethics on organ transplants which stress the importance of free and informed consent.
New regulations on organ transplants took effect on 1 May 2007 which banned the buying and selling of organs and stipulated that organs could only be removed with the written consent of the donor. However, they made no specific reference to the extraction of organs from death penalty prisoners. In October 2007, the Chinese Medical Association, with the apparent backing of the Ministry of Health, came to a decision not to transplant organs from prisoners or others in custody, except into members
of their immediate families. This contradicted previous assertions made by Chinese officials that death penalty prisoners were a suitable source of organs for transplant as long as this is “voluntary” and they or their families have given consent. However, Ministry of Health officials have reportedly stated that prisoners will remain a source of organs for five more years as
execution-related transplantation winds down.
door Cinderella » ma 04 aug , 2008 4:17
door Cinderella » do 07 aug , 2008 18:39
door Cinderella » do 02 okt , 2008 9:06
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