Increase in nationwide organ transplants after 1999[edit]



Liver transplants performed annually at the Tianjin Orient Organ Transplant Centre, 1998-2004

The number of organ transplants performed in China grew rapidly beginning in 2000. This timeframe corresponds with the onset of the persecution of Falun Gong, when tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were being sent to Chinese labor camps, detention centers and prisons.
In 1998, the country reported 3,596 kidney transplants annually. By 2005, that number had risen to approximately 10,000.[13] The number of facilities performing kidney transplants increased from 106 to 368 between 2001 and 2005. Similarly, from 1999 to 2006, the number of liver transplantation centers in China rose from 22 to over 500.[4]The volume of transplants performed in these centers also increased substantially in this period. One hospital reported on its website that it performed 9 liver transplants in 1998, but completed 647 liver transplants in four months in 2005. The Jiaotong University Hospital in Shanghai recorded seven liver transplants in 2001, 53 in 2002, 105 in 2003, 144 in 2004, and 147 in 2005.[13]
Kilgour and Matas write that the increase in organ transplants cannot be entirely attributed to improvements in transplant technology: “kidney transplant technology was fully developed in China long before the persecution of Falun Gong began. Yet kidney transplants shot up, more than doubling once the persecution of Falun Gong started...Nowhere have transplants jumped so significantly with the same number of donors simply because of a change in technology.”[13]
Furthermore, they note that during this period of rapid expansion in China’s organ transplant industry, there were no significant improvements to the voluntary organ donation or allocation system, and the supply of death row inmates as donors also did not increase.[13][22] Although it does not prove the allegations, the parallel between rapid growth in organ transplants and the mass imprisonment of Falun Gong practitioners is consistent with the hypothesis that Falun Gong practitioners in custody were having their organs harvested.
Discrepancy in known sources of organs[edit]
Chinese officials reported in 2005 that up to 95% of organ transplants are sourced from prisoners.[16] However, China does not perform enough legal executions to account for the large number of transplants that are performed, and voluntary donations are exceedingly rare (only 130 people registered as voluntary organ donors nationwide from 2003 to 2009).[5]).
Chinese health officials reported that over 13,000 organ transplants were performed in China in 2004;[3] by 2006, the state-run China Daily newspaper reported that 20,000 organ transplants were performed annually.[4] In the same time period, the number of individuals sentenced to death and executed was far fewer than the number of transplants. Based on publicly available reports, Amnesty International documented 1,770 executions in 2006; high-end estimates put the figure closer to 8,000.[56] Because China lacks an organized organ matching and allocation system, and in order to satisfy expectations for very short wait times, it is rare that multiple organs are harvested from the same donor. Moreover, many death row inmates have health conditions such as hepatitis B that would frequently disqualify them as organ donors. This suggests the existence of a secondary source for organs.[14] United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak says “the explanation that most of these organs come from death row inmates is inconclusive...If so, the number of executed felons must then be much higher as so far assumed.”[57]
In a statement before the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Damon Noto said “the prisoners sentenced to death cannot fully account for all the transplantations that are taking place in China [...] Even if they executed 10,000 and transplanted 10,000 a year, there would still be a very large discrepancy. Why is that? It is simply impossible that those 10,000 people executed would match perfectly the 10,000 people that needed the organs.”[58] David Kilgour and David Matas similarly write that traditional sources of transplants such as executed prisoners, donors, and the brain dead "come nowhere near to explaining the total number of transplants across China." Like Noto, they point to the large number of Falun Gong practitioners in the labor camp and prison system as a likely alternative source for organs.[13]