The death penalty and organ transplantation in China: the role of academic heart surgeons.

t t fi 1 m r p t l j t c w m N t C f h b shortage of organ donors is the major limitation for ny type of “routine” transplantation. Although donaion of organs by direct relatives in the case of liver and idney transplants could almost double the number of uch operations conducted in industrial nations, the aiting lists for transplants would still dramatically xceed the number of available organs in any region of he world. Unfortunately, this is the case for every rgan that can be transplanted today. In the case of ransplants of thoracic organs (heart and lungs), there is s yet no known way of using a living organ donor for eart transplantation. Different social, cultural and reliious attitudes in certain regions of Asia restrict the rowth of transplantation programs by dramatically educing the pool of organ donors, even though ecoomic problems may also be in large part responsible or limiting the number of transplants. In China, Conucianism and the dominant cultural ideal of returning o the ancestors with one’s own intact body have led to idespread refusal of the harvesting of organs from the adavers of recently deceased relatives for transplants. ince the late 1990s, numerous reports in the internaional press (e.g., see Refs), as well in scientific ournals, have exposed the practice of organ “donaion” using organs taken from executed prisoners. China has by far the most executions of any country n the world. Although the Chinese government does ot provide official statistics concerning the number of xecutions, Amnesty International has estimated that ,900 death sentences were imposed and at least 1,770 ersons executed in 2005. Nevertheless, the true umber of executions is probably much higher, with xperts estimating up to 10,000 executions every ear. Very often, the court cases leading to the xecutions cannot be considered “fair trials” by Euroean standards, with the accused not having access to