BMJ  2007;335:961 (10 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.39388.546968.DB

News

A matter of life or death: China moves towards changing its transplantation practices

Jane Parry

Hong Kong

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

China is changing—and changing fast. And, partly to gain acceptance on the global health stage, it has begun to tackle one of its more controversial healthcare practices: using organs harvested from executed prisoners for transplantation.

For Zhonghua Klaus Chen, vice chairman of the Chinese Organ Transplantation Society, a recent statement by the Chinese Medical Association against the use of executed prisoners' organs is a welcome boost to efforts to bring Chinese transplantation practices into line with international standards.

Having trained in Germany and the United Kingdom, including a stint with Cambridge University under the transplantation surgeon Roy Calne, Professor Chen became convinced that prisoners were not in a position to give free consent for organ donation after their deaths.

"As part of the organ procurement team in Cambridge I was very proud of what I was doing," he said, "yet, in China, surgeons using prisoners' organs can't discuss their work . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Ding, Y., Williams, R. M., Sherman, D. H. (2008). Molecular Analysis of a 4-Dimethylallyltryptophan Synthase from Malbranchea aurantiaca. J. Biol. Chem. 283: 16068-16076 [Abstract] [Full text]  

Student BMJ

Intimate examinations

Israeli students are refusing to perform intimate examinations on anaesthetised women without their informed consent.

www.student.bmj.com

Listen to the latest BMJ Interview