Tuesday 12 August 2008

Australia urged to ban China's 'transplant tourism'

A human rights lawyer from Canada has called on the Australian Government to ban transplant tourism.

David Matas is addressing the International Congress of the Transplantation Society in Sydney today, where he says he will present new evidence of forced organ removals from prisoners and Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Mr Matas says he has audio tapes of Chinese doctors admitting they have Falun Gong organs for sale.

"We had callers calling into China pretending to be relatives of patients asking hospitals if they had organs of Falun Gong practitioners for sale on the basis that the Falun Gong is an exercise regime and they're healthy, and therefore their organs are healthy, and we got admissions throughout China that yes, we have these organs for sale," he said.

Mr Matas also says until recently, the main market for these organs was foreigners seeking cheap transplants.

"China still does not have a generation system for organs, does still not have a law allowing for the sourcing of organs from a brain dead cardiac alive, it still does not have a national organ distribution and sharing system, it's still the overwhelming 90, 95-96 per cent of its organs are sourced from prisoners," he said.

Related:

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