This warning follows China's admission, after years of denial, that organs are being harvested from executed prisoners.
"Apart from a small portion of traffic victims, most of the organs from cadavers are from executed prisoners," the China Daily newspaper reported China's Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu as saying at a conference of surgeons in Guangzhou last week.
"The current organ donation shortfall can't meet demand," he said.
State-Sanctioned Transplant Tourism
Many transplant recipients are foreigners who pay large sums of money to avoid long waiting lists in their own countries. Currently, more than 1 million Chinese people are waiting for transplants.
Foreigners, however, are taking priority because they can pay more for organs, with kidneys reaching around NZ$90,000 and livers $193,000.
41,500 Unexplained Organs
The Chinese regime has also been unable to explain the source of organs for 41,500 transplant operations for the period 2000 to 2005, according to an investigative report into organ harvesting. The unexplained organs are over and above the numbers used from recorded executions.
The report claims the state-sanctioned organ trade gets a steady stream of body parts by killing Falun Gong practitioners who have been illegally detained in mental hospitals, detention centres and forced labour camps across mainland China.
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that was outlawed by the regime in 1999.
The report was co-authored and released in July by former Secretary of State (Asia Pacific) David Kilgour and international human rights lawyer David Matas of Canada and can be accessed at http://organharvestinvestigation.net
The Chinese Communist Party has not denied the allegations from the report and embassy officials in New Zealand did not return calls.
During their investigation, the two lawyers discovered that an organ can be procured within a matter of weeks in China whereas in all other countries finding a matching donor takes an average of 2.5 years.
Irish Government Calling for Explanation
The report's authors presented the report to Ireland's Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs last week. Ireland has now called on the Chinese ambassador to explain the allegations before a committee.
Matas has warned "We have a new form of evil in the world". Mr. Kilgour said decision makers, doctors and other medical staff involved, should face prosecution in the International Criminal Court as soon as possible.
"The incredible thing is that the doctor would…go down the names on sheets of paper looking for blood types and tissue types and so on, and he [the patient] would point at names on the list. The doctor would then go away and come back with organs," Kilgour said.
New Zealand 'Tourists'
Medical professionals say although few New Zealanders are travelling to China for transplants—around five a year for kidneys—the number is still too high.
New Zealand Medical Association chairman Ross Boswell, said removing organs from any patient, including a prisoner, without consent is unethical.
"It is clear it is not possible for a prisoner to give consent for organ transplant," Dr. Boswell said.
He said the World Medical Association (WMA) had discussed this highly contentious issue at their annual assembly in Sun City, South Africa in October and were planning meetings with the Chinese Medical Association.
Internet Shopping for Organs
Transplant Physician Ian Dittmer, from the Auckland Renal Transplant Group at Auckland City Hospital said patients could easily sign up over the Internet on China's hospital websites for organs.
The short waiting times in China are a strong incentive for people who would die without surgery, he said.
Doctor Dittmer said he had not treated anyone who had had a transplant in China. But he said people often arrive back in New Zealand "quite unwell".
"The chances of getting some sort of virus are much higher. They tend to just turn patients out after a week or two."
The need for immunosuppressants meant patients would have to contact their specialist when they return to New Zealand.
Patients will need to take these drugs for the rest of their lives to stop the body from rejecting the foreign organ, he said.
Code of Ethics and Death Penalty
A code of ethics for dealing with China has been drawn up by the World Transplant Society, and governments are considering legislation that could make it illegal for foreigners to procure organs without receiving a valid letter of consent from the donor.
China remains the world leader in its use of the death penalty. According to Amnesty International estimates, over 1770 people were executed and 3900 sentenced to death in 2005.
The true figures are believed to be much higher.
The death penalty remains applicable to around 68 crimes in China. They include non-violent offences, such as committing tax fraud, embezzling state property and accepting a bribe. In March 2004, a senior member of the National People's Congress announced that China executes around 10,000 people per year.
New Zealand had just 29 organ donors during 2005 and 40 in 2004—the lowest number in the West, according to the Give Life New Zealand website.
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