China keeps low profile on organ transplants

Agence France Press
February 28, 2006

China kept a low profile on the issue of organ sales to foreigners, declining to comment specifically on reports that at least seven visiting Japanese had died due to treatment.

"Transplants should be arranged in accordance with law, and the general thinking behind it should be to save people's lives first," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular briefing when asked about the issue.

Liu declined to comment further.

A Japanese official said Monday his government was investigating human organ transplants in China, following a report that at least seven Japanese died due to treatment in the neighboring country.

China has an increasingly lucrative transplant industry but it is tainted by allegations that the organs of executed prisoners are harvested and sold to hospitals.

China's health ministry on Tuesday also declined to comment, saying the official in charge would not be available until next week.

Japanese media reported earlier Tuesday that hospitals in China had received a gag order, telling them not to say anything to foreign journalists.

Japan's Jiji Press news agency said Sunday at least seven Japanese patients who travelled to China over the past two years died soon after the operations.

The patients were in their 30s to 50s and died in Shanghai, the northeastern city of Shenyang and the southern city of Changsha from early 2004 to February 2006, Jiji said, quoting diplomatic sources and transplant support groups.

It also said 180 Japanese had undergone liver and kidney transplant operations in China in 2004 and 2005 alone.