Voluntary Organ Donor Program Established

飞雪寒冰

China launched a new national organ donation system managed by the Red Cross Society and the Health Ministry on August 25 aimed at curbing the informal organ market and easing organ shortages. By establishing China's first voluntary organ donor program, authorities hope to overhaul a system that now harvests the vast majority of its organs from the black-market and executed prisoners, while leaving millions who desperately require transplants hopeless.

Official estimates indicate that only about 1 percent of the 1.3 million people in China who need kidney and liver transplants are able to get one.

Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu said China should establish an adequate donation system in accordance to international standards as soon as possible. Due to high risks involved in transplanting from living donors and China's reluctance to accept “brain death” as a criterion for death, organ transplantation following cardiac death has become the most common practice. However, China has not formalized such a donation system.

飞雪寒冰

China launched a new national organ donation system managed by the Red Cross Society and the Health Ministry on August 25 aimed at curbing the informal organ market and easing organ shortages. By establishing China's first voluntary organ donor program, authorities hope to overhaul a system that now harvests the vast majority of its organs from the black-market and executed prisoners, while leaving millions who desperately require transplants hopeless.

Official estimates indicate that only about 1 percent of the 1.3 million people in China who need kidney and liver transplants are able to get one.

Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu said China should establish an adequate donation system in accordance to international standards as soon as possible. Due to high risks involved in transplanting from living donors and China's reluctance to accept “brain death” as a criterion for death, organ transplantation following cardiac death has become the most common practice. However, China has not formalized such a donation system.

飞雪寒冰

News of the murder first appeared on an influential Chinese organ transplant Web site. The Beijing-based Global Times newspaper cited it on August 24, stating that the police had identified doctors at a Guangzhou-based hospital who had purchased all of the victim's organs on the black market. It remains unknown whether the doctors were involved in the murder of the healthy man.

Huang told media that the ministry will deal with this case according to the results of the police investigation.

Earlier this month, the ministry launched a review of the qualifications and practices of 164 medical institutions which are allowed to conduct organ transplants under a central directive passed in May 2007. The directive prohibits human-organ transplants from donors who are not relatives of or emotionally connected to the recipients. Institutes which fail to pass the assessment will be required to stop related operations. Results are to be released on the ministry's Web site.