7 ms·

The Nightmare of Human Organ Harvesting in China

85 points by ycombonator 8y ago

ycombonator 8y ago
Where are the organs coming from? China claims it has the “largest voluntary organ donation system in Asia” and stopped using prisoners in 2015. But the country has no tradition of voluntary organ donation.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  stopped using prisoners in 2015 "Congratulations, Prisoner #289,349 — you've been paroled. You're no longer a prisoner!" "You mean I'm free to go?" "Well, most of you is. Step this way..."
- coldtea 8y ago
  >But the country has no tradition of voluntary organ donation So? Modern China also didn't have a tradition of for profit companies and skyscrapers, but they managed to do well in both...
door5 8y ago
>Mr. Rogers is East Asia Team Leader at the human-rights organization CSW, deputy chairman of the U.K. Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission Hm, I wonder what the political motives of the author are.
- mc32 8y ago
  Maybe regardless of politics they’re just appalled at the idea someone can be forced to donate organs?
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Unless you're suggesting he's part of a grand conspiracy to fabricate this data, I find his politics extremely irrelevant.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Why wouldn't he be "part of a grand conspiracy to fabricate this data"? It's called promoting their country's national interests, and it's part of the job description for such roles. Conspiracy doesn't have to include loonies, aliens, and illuminati. Nation states do conspiracies perfectly well, they just call them "foreign policy", and include presenting the data as they like, painting the pictures to fit the politics of the day, having cosy relations with journalists, getting selective people on the other side (e.g. opposition leaders) to give the kind of statements they like, and so on.
    - _bxg1 8y ago
      Seriously? "In 2006 Chinese-speaking researchers posed as organ buyers and directly asked if organs from Falun Gong practitioners could be arranged for transplant. Hospitals throughout China confirmed they had such organs available, no problem. The stories are brutal. Dr. Enver Tohti, a former surgeon from Xinjiang, testified in the British, Irish and European parliaments to removing organs from a prisoner forcibly in 1995. “We had been told to wait behind a hill, and come into the field as soon as we’d hear the gunshot,” he recalled. “A moment later there were gunshots. Not one, but many. We rushed into the field. An armed police officer approached us and told me where to go. He led us closer, then pointed to a body, saying, ‘This is the one.’ By then our chief surgeon appeared from nowhere and told me to remove the liver and two kidneys.” According to Dr. Tohti, the man’s wound was not necessarily fatal. But Dr. Tohti went ahead and removed the liver and kidneys while the man’s heart was still beating. Experts around the world have testified to China’s crimes. Israel, Taiwan and Spain have banned “organ tourism” to China. United Nations rapporteurs have called China to account for the sources of their organs but received no response." This isn't just some rogue pundit, this is a major geopolitical topic. I swear, parts of HackerNews recently have been reading more like InfoWars.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        Well, it can be totally true, and it possibly is. Chinese government did kill and torture several million people during the "Cultural Revolution", so there's that. But it's not true because some organization or high ranking official couldn't possibly be lying or presenting a fine-tuned picture. Whole trillion dollar wars were supported on false testimony and lies or exaggerations. E.g. it could just be part of the "China is suppressing Falun Gong" (including executing prisoners they consider leaders etc, and then using their organs) as opposed to "Chinese are so evil that they routinely kill Falun Gong members just to get their organs" (which I find harder to fathom). I'm skeptical because a lot of times very official testimonies are very official BS (WMDs, "collision", Nayirah testimony, Iran-Contra, and lotsa others), so bullshitting the population and spinning the media is not some unique habit of undemocratic countries. E.g. one basic pillar of this China-organ story is the so-called "Kilgour-Matas" report. Matas was on the board of the International Centre for Human Rights & Democratic Development, which is not unknown to controversy itself (basically funding radical organizations and R&D to covertly promote foreign interests out of line with its stated purpose) and was closed down later ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Centre_for_Human_Rights_and_Democratic_Development#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Centre_for_Human... ).
- jasonhansel 8y ago
  Maybe his motive is...supporting human rights?
yodon 8y ago
I confess I fail to see how outline.com (which is currently where this link leads) is anything but a massive content piracy machine masquerading as some kind of tech startup. I find it incredibly hard to believe HN would allow submissions of warez sites and links to cracked app downloads, and fail to see the difference between that and the way outline is used here. I get that it's convenient to have free access to paywalled content, just like it's convenient to have free access to tons of cracked apps.
- sniperjzp 8y ago
  +1, considering the amount of time and effort the author put in the post, outline.com draws traffic to their site, the author can't get the enough feedback and attention (sometimes the $), loosing the incentive of creating more original content, leading to the damage to the whole ecosystem.
- dimensi0nal 8y ago
  You're right. Paywalled articles should be banned entirely.
- bsder 8y ago
  If people didn't submit paywalled articles, there would be no use for outline.com, and it wouldn't exist. While I have no use for paywalled articles, I can't seem to avoid them in my Google searches and fora that I read. Using outline.com allows me to demonetize the practice from both sides and discourage it.
  - yodon 8y ago
    So using warez sites and downloading cracked apps is how you demonetize those who make their living writing software? The economic impact of warez sites and outline.com are the same, they just impact different industries.
    - bsder 8y ago
      I have no problem with treating paywall like warez and banning them. The problem I have is that I can't escape paywall like I can warez. Paywall clogs my search results and my fora even though I don't want it. Give me a way to never see paywalled results and outline.com will cease to exist for me.
Leary 8y ago
There are 36,000 organ transplants performed in the US every year, does anyone know how many occur in China?
- disillusioned 8y ago
  The article touches on this momentarily: >In 2010 China’s official number of voluntary donors was 34. In 2018 China still had only about 6,000 official organ donors, who are said to donate more than 18,000 organs. Yet the “Bloody Harvest” researchers find that figure is “easily surpassed by just a few hospitals.” Tianjin First Center alone performs more than 6,000 transplants a year, and the report’s authors “verified and confirmed 712 hospitals which carry out liver and kidney transplants.” Dr. Huang claims China will perform the most transplants in the world by 2020—more than America’s 40,000 a year.
chineseFaggot 8y ago
Woah, HN! Article about China! Better watch out! Talking about that country on the internet, I mean gee whiz! Holy moly! Saying anything about China on the internet! Jeeperzzzzzzzz!
pcurve 8y ago
I actually know someone who got one done in 2006. From what I remember, it was one of those don't ask don't tell deal. However it was understood that the organ came from executed prisoner. It saved her life. I don't know anything about what goes into ensuring donor's organ is a reasonable match, but I'm not too sure if the waiting period for her was that long. Anyway I do remember it became much more difficult for foreigner to get transplant shortly afterwards but this article seems to indicate the trend is reversing with institional practice.
- Proven 8y ago
  If they didn't like, I'd like to know why the prisoner was executed - because they found a buyer or because the sentence matched the crime. But "don't ask don't tell" so... I wonder whether it's different in North Korea. Socialists don't even give their citizens the luxury of being treated like commodity (which would fetch the person or their family a market price) - you get treated like worthless garbage.
- Teever 8y ago
  I always wondered why Steve Jobs waited around so long for his liver transplant instead of just getting one from China. And before you say morals don't forget he gamed the waiting list in the US to get the too-late liver and he had no qualms seeing slave labour build his companies products.
  - dpark 8y ago
    Steve Jobs didn’t need a Chinese organ. He just needed to decide he was ready to get the transplant instead of trying to cure his cancer with a special diet. Once he realized he wasn’t curing himself with his diet, he got the transplant quickly because, as you noted, he gamed the system.
    - Teever 8y ago
      But once he was on the transplant list he still had to wait and he still gamed it to shorten that wait. Which makes me wonder why he didn't just get a Chinese liver at that point.
aetherspawn 8y ago
Interesting; I had only heard the other day from a bizarre discussion with a Chinese friend who has a family member in government back in China that the price of an organ can increase if the donor is from a clean Christain denomination, because it is feasible that the organs are better kept (ie not an alcoholic, not a drug taker, not a smoker etc) before their donor was deceased. Supposedly there is a market for the healthiest organs to the highest bidder. I guess they hit the jackpot!

85 points by ycombonator 8y ago

Where are the organs coming from? China claims it has the “largest voluntary organ donation system in Asia” and stopped using prisoners in 2015. But the country has no tradition of voluntary organ donation.

reaperducer 8y ago
stopped using prisoners in 2015 "Congratulations, Prisoner #289,349 — you've been paroled. You're no longer a prisoner!" "You mean I'm free to go?" "Well, most of you is. Step this way..."
coldtea 8y ago
>But the country has no tradition of voluntary organ donation So? Modern China also didn't have a tradition of for profit companies and skyscrapers, but they managed to do well in both...

door5 8y ago

>Mr. Rogers is East Asia Team Leader at the human-rights organization CSW, deputy chairman of the U.K. Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission Hm, I wonder what the political motives of the author are.

mc32 8y ago
Maybe regardless of politics they’re just appalled at the idea someone can be forced to donate organs?
_bxg1 8y ago
Unless you're suggesting he's part of a grand conspiracy to fabricate this data, I find his politics extremely irrelevant.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Why wouldn't he be "part of a grand conspiracy to fabricate this data"? It's called promoting their country's national interests, and it's part of the job description for such roles. Conspiracy doesn't have to include loonies, aliens, and illuminati. Nation states do conspiracies perfectly well, they just call them "foreign policy", and include presenting the data as they like, painting the pictures to fit the politics of the day, having cosy relations with journalists, getting selective people on the other side (e.g. opposition leaders) to give the kind of statements they like, and so on.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    Seriously? "In 2006 Chinese-speaking researchers posed as organ buyers and directly asked if organs from Falun Gong practitioners could be arranged for transplant. Hospitals throughout China confirmed they had such organs available, no problem. The stories are brutal. Dr. Enver Tohti, a former surgeon from Xinjiang, testified in the British, Irish and European parliaments to removing organs from a prisoner forcibly in 1995. “We had been told to wait behind a hill, and come into the field as soon as we’d hear the gunshot,” he recalled. “A moment later there were gunshots. Not one, but many. We rushed into the field. An armed police officer approached us and told me where to go. He led us closer, then pointed to a body, saying, ‘This is the one.’ By then our chief surgeon appeared from nowhere and told me to remove the liver and two kidneys.” According to Dr. Tohti, the man’s wound was not necessarily fatal. But Dr. Tohti went ahead and removed the liver and kidneys while the man’s heart was still beating. Experts around the world have testified to China’s crimes. Israel, Taiwan and Spain have banned “organ tourism” to China. United Nations rapporteurs have called China to account for the sources of their organs but received no response." This isn't just some rogue pundit, this is a major geopolitical topic. I swear, parts of HackerNews recently have been reading more like InfoWars.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      Well, it can be totally true, and it possibly is. Chinese government did kill and torture several million people during the "Cultural Revolution", so there's that. But it's not true because some organization or high ranking official couldn't possibly be lying or presenting a fine-tuned picture. Whole trillion dollar wars were supported on false testimony and lies or exaggerations. E.g. it could just be part of the "China is suppressing Falun Gong" (including executing prisoners they consider leaders etc, and then using their organs) as opposed to "Chinese are so evil that they routinely kill Falun Gong members just to get their organs" (which I find harder to fathom). I'm skeptical because a lot of times very official testimonies are very official BS (WMDs, "collision", Nayirah testimony, Iran-Contra, and lotsa others), so bullshitting the population and spinning the media is not some unique habit of undemocratic countries. E.g. one basic pillar of this China-organ story is the so-called "Kilgour-Matas" report. Matas was on the board of the International Centre for Human Rights & Democratic Development, which is not unknown to controversy itself (basically funding radical organizations and R&D to covertly promote foreign interests out of line with its stated purpose) and was closed down later ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Centre_for_Human_Rights_and_Democratic_Development#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Centre_for_Human... ).
jasonhansel 8y ago
Maybe his motive is...supporting human rights?

yodon 8y ago

I confess I fail to see how outline.com (which is currently where this link leads) is anything but a massive content piracy machine masquerading as some kind of tech startup. I find it incredibly hard to believe HN would allow submissions of warez sites and links to cracked app downloads, and fail to see the difference between that and the way outline is used here. I get that it's convenient to have free access to paywalled content, just like it's convenient to have free access to tons of cracked apps.

sniperjzp 8y ago
+1, considering the amount of time and effort the author put in the post, outline.com draws traffic to their site, the author can't get the enough feedback and attention (sometimes the $), loosing the incentive of creating more original content, leading to the damage to the whole ecosystem.
dimensi0nal 8y ago
You're right. Paywalled articles should be banned entirely.
bsder 8y ago
If people didn't submit paywalled articles, there would be no use for outline.com, and it wouldn't exist. While I have no use for paywalled articles, I can't seem to avoid them in my Google searches and fora that I read. Using outline.com allows me to demonetize the practice from both sides and discourage it.
- yodon 8y ago
  So using warez sites and downloading cracked apps is how you demonetize those who make their living writing software? The economic impact of warez sites and outline.com are the same, they just impact different industries.
  - bsder 8y ago
    I have no problem with treating paywall like warez and banning them. The problem I have is that I can't escape paywall like I can warez. Paywall clogs my search results and my fora even though I don't want it. Give me a way to never see paywalled results and outline.com will cease to exist for me.

Leary 8y ago

There are 36,000 organ transplants performed in the US every year, does anyone know how many occur in China?

disillusioned 8y ago
The article touches on this momentarily: >In 2010 China’s official number of voluntary donors was 34. In 2018 China still had only about 6,000 official organ donors, who are said to donate more than 18,000 organs. Yet the “Bloody Harvest” researchers find that figure is “easily surpassed by just a few hospitals.” Tianjin First Center alone performs more than 6,000 transplants a year, and the report’s authors “verified and confirmed 712 hospitals which carry out liver and kidney transplants.” Dr. Huang claims China will perform the most transplants in the world by 2020—more than America’s 40,000 a year.

chineseFaggot 8y ago

Woah, HN! Article about China! Better watch out! Talking about that country on the internet, I mean gee whiz! Holy moly! Saying anything about China on the internet! Jeeperzzzzzzzz!

pcurve 8y ago

I actually know someone who got one done in 2006. From what I remember, it was one of those don't ask don't tell deal. However it was understood that the organ came from executed prisoner. It saved her life. I don't know anything about what goes into ensuring donor's organ is a reasonable match, but I'm not too sure if the waiting period for her was that long. Anyway I do remember it became much more difficult for foreigner to get transplant shortly afterwards but this article seems to indicate the trend is reversing with institional practice.

Proven 8y ago
If they didn't like, I'd like to know why the prisoner was executed - because they found a buyer or because the sentence matched the crime. But "don't ask don't tell" so... I wonder whether it's different in North Korea. Socialists don't even give their citizens the luxury of being treated like commodity (which would fetch the person or their family a market price) - you get treated like worthless garbage.
Teever 8y ago
I always wondered why Steve Jobs waited around so long for his liver transplant instead of just getting one from China. And before you say morals don't forget he gamed the waiting list in the US to get the too-late liver and he had no qualms seeing slave labour build his companies products.
- dpark 8y ago
  Steve Jobs didn’t need a Chinese organ. He just needed to decide he was ready to get the transplant instead of trying to cure his cancer with a special diet. Once he realized he wasn’t curing himself with his diet, he got the transplant quickly because, as you noted, he gamed the system.
  - Teever 8y ago
    But once he was on the transplant list he still had to wait and he still gamed it to shorten that wait. Which makes me wonder why he didn't just get a Chinese liver at that point.

aetherspawn 8y ago

Interesting; I had only heard the other day from a bizarre discussion with a Chinese friend who has a family member in government back in China that the price of an organ can increase if the donor is from a clean Christain denomination, because it is feasible that the organs are better kept (ie not an alcoholic, not a drug taker, not a smoker etc) before their donor was deceased. Supposedly there is a market for the healthiest organs to the highest bidder. I guess they hit the jackpot!