Abstract
BackgroundIn December 2014, China announced that only voluntarily donated organs from citizens would be used for transplantation after January 1, 2015. Many medical professionals worldwide believe that China has stopped using organs from death-row prisoners.DiscussionIn the present article, we briefly review the historical development of organ procurement from death-row prisoners in China and comprehensively analyze the social-political background and the legal basis of the announcement. The announcement was not accompanied by any change in organ sourcing legislations or regulations. As a fact, the use of prisoner organs remains legal in China. Even after January 2015, key Chinese transplant officials have repeatedly stated that death-row prisoners have the same right as regular citizens to “voluntarily donate” organs. This perpetuates an unethical organ procurement system in ongoing violation of international standards.ConclusionsOrgan sourcing from death-row prisoners has not stopped in China. The 2014 announcement refers to the intention to stop the use of organs illegally harvested without the consent of the prisoners. Prisoner organs procured with “consent” are now simply labelled as “voluntarily donations from citizens”. The semantic switch may whitewash sourcing from both death-row prisoners and prisoners of conscience. China can gain credibility only by enacting new legislation prohibiting use of prisoner organs and by making its organ sourcing system open to international inspections. Until international ethical standards are transparently met, sanctions should remain.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12910-015-0074-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
DiscussionWe briefly review the historical development of organ procurement from death-row prisoners in China and comprehensively analyze the social-political background and the legal basis of the announcement
In December 2014, China announced that only voluntarily donated organs from citizens would be used for transplantation after January 1, 2015
Organ sourcing from death-row prisoners has not stopped in China
Summary
Before 2005: decades of denying China’s transplant medicine started with reliance on organ procurement from executed prisoners. Recently in an interview with the China Youth Net, Huang did reveal the legal basis for the December 2014 announcement: “The first is the Regulation on Human Organ Transplantation issued in 2007, the second is the criminalization of organ trading in the Criminal Law Amendment issued in 2011, and the third important legislation is the Procurement and Allocation Regulations on Donated Human Organs issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission in August 2013 These three documents prescribe that the source of the organ must be voluntary, unpaid, open, transparent and traceable. If death-row prisoners are willing to atone for their crime by donating organs, they should be encouraged” [46] With such repeated statements, Huang is sending a clear message to Chinese hospitals that organs from executed prisoners can still be used as long as written “consents” are provided, i.e. the laws are obeyed. Decoupling transplantation from execution provides as well a double natural experiment concerning trends for both the former and the latter which, over time, have become a subject of concern beyond China
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