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China to outlaw trade in organs

China said yesterday it would ban the trade in human organs, amid domestic pressure to regulate the chaotic industry and reports that Japanese and Malaysians had died from botched Chinese transplants.

The health ministry issued regulations that will go into effect on July 1 banning the purchase and sale of organs while also introducing a set of medical standards for transplants.

Hospitals will be banned from taking organs without written consent from the donor, according to the regulations that were published on the ministry's Web site and carried in the state press.

Only China's top-ranked hospitals with a medical ethics committee and a proven ability to carry out transplant operations will be allowed to conduct the surgery.

The ministry also threatened to revoke hospitals' licenses if patients did not survive a certain number of years.

"Medical institutions and doctors in this field who violate ... laws and regulations in conducting transplant operations will be punished according to relevant laws and regulations," according to the guidelines.

However the guidelines did not appear to address what is widely recognized as the core problem of the industry -- a dire shortage of donated organs to meet demand.

The shortage -- state press have said only about 1 percent of all patients who need new organs get them -- has fueled what critics in and outside of China say is a rampant black market.

Hospitals have been regularly accused of secretly taking organs from dead traffic victims and other dead patients without telling family members.

Sometimes hospitals buy the organs from the deceased person's family members, but it is rare for families to consent as Chinese people traditionally want to keep the body intact.

Organs of executed prisoners are also harvested and sold to hospitals without consent, according to human rights groups and media reports in recent years.
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