Latest news with #organharvesting
Fox News
a day ago
- Health
- Fox News
Expert raises concerns over organ donation safety in parts of US
Donna Rhorer recounts her brother waking up prior to his organ harvesting surgery and Federation of American Scientists' Jennifer Erickson discusses concerns regarding the organ transplant system on 'The Will Cain Show.'
Daily Mail
05-08-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Comatose woman woke up moments before organ harvesting surgery... but pushy donor boss 'told doctors to operate anyway'
An organ harvesting organization has faced allegations that it urged doctors to remove body parts from a comatose woman - who went on to make a full recovery after medics insisted she showed signs of life. Danella Gallegos said she feels lucky to be alive after her organs were almost taken by 'pushy' donor bosses when she fell into a coma in 2022. Gallegos, who was 38 at the time, was homeless when she suffered an unspecified medical emergency, and doctors at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico told her family she would never recover. Without any hope, her family agreed to donate her organs and preparations were made with procurement organization New Mexico Donor Services. In her final days, Gallegos' family said they saw tears in her eyes - a sign that they say donation coordinators quickly brushed off, claiming watery eyes were just a reflex. On the day her organs were set to be taken, one of Gallegos' sisters said she was adamant Danella was still sentient because she saw her move while holding her hand. Doctors in a pre-surgery room were left stunned when Gallegos, deep in a coma but still medically alive, was able to blink her eyes on the medic's command. But the organ coordinator in the room told doctors that they should ply the patient with morphine and move ahead anyway, according to a New York Times report. Gallegos's doctors defied the coordinators, and they brought her out of surgery. The doctors' decision saved her life - as Gallegos went on to make a full recovery. 'I feel so fortunate,' she says, adding that she recalled feeling fear while in her coma but not much else. 'But it's also crazy to think how close things came to ending differently.' Hospital workers told the Times that they faced pressure from New Mexico Donor Services to forge ahead despite their doubts, which the organization denied. The organ harvesting organization said that it does not interfere with medical decision making, and stressed that only hospitals are in charge of caring for patients. In response, Presbyterian Hospital said that Donor Services was actually responsible for all aspects of the donation process. It has launched an investigation into Gallegos's case. 'All they care about is getting organs,' Neva Williams, a veteran intensive care nurse at the hospital, told the Times. 'They're so aggressive. It's sickening.' New Mexico Donor Services has been contacted by Daily Mail for comment. The harrowing story emerged as mounting scrutiny has fallen on the organ donation industry amid allegations that it is rife with mistakes and abuse. Many such stories have emerged as hospitals increasingly turn to a type of organ removal called 'donation after circulatory death', where a patient is not deemed medically deceased but is not likely to ever recover. These surgeries, which require permission from the patient's family, accounted for a third of all organ donations last year in the US, and triple the number from five years earlier. The space of time between when a person is dead and when their organs are viable is short, meaning that the process can be subject to rushed decisions. In Kentucky, a federal investigation this year found that the state's organ procurement organization had ignored signs of increasing consciousness among 73 donors, including a man whose organs were pursued even as he shook his head and pulled his knees up to his chest. 'I think these types of problems are happening much more than we know,' Dr. Wade Smith, a longtime neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, told the Times. The organ harvesting industry was met with increased federal oversight last year following a shock hearing that included testimony from another near-miss patient, Anthony Hoover. Hoover was set to be removed from life support and his organs taken in 2021 when he suddenly woke up moments before. He suffered severe neurological injuries, but survived the ordeal. His case led Kentucky authorities to put in place new policies to perform regular neurological testing on patients to scan for brain activity, and develop ways for clinicians to pause donations when they can see a patient is improving. While Hoover was saved moments before he was removed from life support, the Times investigation found that another patient, Misty Hawkins, was only found to still be alive after doctors had already sawed into her chest. Hawkins, 42, fell into a coma last year after choking while eating, and spent weeks in hospital before her mother was faced with the decision of taking her off life support. Her mother eventually decided to go ahead and donate her organs, and 103 minutes after Hawkins was taken off life support she was declared dead. A surgeon sawed through her breastbone, only to discover that her heart was still beating and she appeared to be breathing. Hospital staff said that surgeons 'immediately stopped the procedure once they saw that the donor's heart was beating', but Hawkins sadly passed away a short time later. Experts said that while organ donation saves thousands of lives every year, the industry is rapidly expanding, meaning procurement organizations continually try and arrange more transplants. The Health and Human Services Department has said in 2020 that the growing demand led it to begin grading procurement organizations based on how many organ donations they get each year. Some now say that this leads procurers to pressure doctors to operate on patients on the line between living and dead. Dr. Robert Cannon, a transplant surgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told the Times that he believes the industry has morphed into a vulnerable system where doctors are hesitant to speak out through fear that people could stop donating altogether. 'I don't know the scope of the problem. I don't know that anybody does,' he said. 'That's the scary thing.'
The Sun
27-07-2025
- Health
- The Sun
Inside China's sick plot to build empire of ‘organ harvesting centres' in five years… with ‘donors' already lined up
CHINA'S regime is significantly expanding its empire of organ harvesting centres in a twisted bid to make money, experts say. A plot to build six new sites in Xinjiang Uyghur by 2030 has stoked fears of forced organ removal, given staggeringly low donation rates in the region. 4 4 China's organ trade is already estimated to have a market value of $1 billion per year - which the Communist government wants to swell. A liver transplant, for example, can cost around £118,000 ($160k) in China - but with a much shorter waiting time compared to the rest of the world. This draws in not only recipients from inside the sprawling nation, but also unsuspecting international visitors who travel there for a transplant. China's regime has long been accused of orchestrating a non-consensual organ harvesting campaign against persecuted minorities. Prisoners are known to be killed specifically for the extraction of their organs. Experts say the primary victims of forced organ harvesting are those who follow Buddhist qigong and meditation practice of Falun Gong. They also believe that incarcerated Uyghurs fall victim - and new facilities are planned to open in their autonomous region of Xinjiang. At least six transplant institutions are tipped to open in the next five years, which campaigners say is hugely disproportionate to Xinjiang's low organ donation rate. Xinjiang is understood to have an organ donation rate of just 0.69 per cent per million people - significantly below the national average of 4.66 per cent. It has raised questions among experts who fear it could be part of a sickening plot to use detained Uyghurs as a living organ "donation" bank. Ughur detainees have reported forced blood tests, ultrasounds and organ-focused medical scans while in custody. Insiders say such procedures are consistent with chilling organ compatibility testing. Wendy Rogers, Chair of the International Advisory Board of the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC), told the Sun: "The guise is that all the organs will come from voluntary donations. "But this is implausible given the reported rate of just 0.69 donors per million people in Xinjiang. "This massive expansion in Xinjiang - a region already under scrutiny for systematic repression - raises deeply troubling questions about where the organs will come from. 'There is simply no justification for such growth in transplant capacity given the region's official organ donation rate, which is far below the national average.' 'Plot to kill survivor' by Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital) THE first known survivor of China's brutal organ harvesting scheme says the regime is plotting to kill him and stage his death as suicide. Cheng Peiming told how Xi Jinping 's communist party is on a mission to silence him after he helped expose its organ harvesting plot. He revealed how he was tortured and had parts of his liver and lung removed by Xi's stooges after being imprisoned for practicing the Falun Gong religion. Leaked insider information reveals China's security services and high-level Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders have taken notice - and have unleashed a plot to try and discredit, or even kill, Cheng. The CCP has said to "kill him directly and make it look like a suicide" if needed, according to bombshell information from an internal source. Cheng has faced several suspicious threats to his physical safety, including an early hours break-in of his home in New York in November. The intruder forced open the bolt on the garage door, left two doors open and left deep tyre marks in his backyard. Cheng believes the break-in was an attempt to intimidate and silence him after a series of other attacks. Up to 100,000 organ transplants are estimated to be carried out in China every year - with huge swathes harvested without consent. New facilities - which will triple the number in the region from three to nine - will offer heart, lung, liver, kidney and pancreas/ small intestine transplants. The Chinese government claimed back in 2015 that it had stopped using organs from executed prisoners - but no legal reforms were coupled with the announcement. Experts say sourcing organs from prisoners was never explicitly banned either. Rogers, who is a professor of Clinical Ethics, added: "We know that China is expanding its transplant capacity in Xinjiang, despite the relatively small population, low voluntary organ donation rates and existing capacity. "This doesn't make sense unless the hospitals involved are confident that there will be a steady supply of organs for transplantation. "In the absence of any other organ source, we believe that the organs will come from Uyghur and other minorities who are incarcerated in camps Xinjiang, and killed for their organs. "Organ transplantation generates a lot of income, so the motive may be financial." It comes after The Sun reported how China's government uses cash bribes and death threats in a warped intimidation crusade against critics. Leaked documents exposed a shocking escalation of attacks on whistleblowers and victims of a forced organ harvesting campaign orchestrated by the regime. Whistleblowers who attended a secret Chinese Communist Party (CCP) meeting have revealed information from inside Xi Jinping 's government. This and a dossier of evidence laid bare a multi-pronged scheme spearheaded by Xi to silence members of Falun Gong and other groups vocal about China's severe persecution. 4 4
Daily Mail
04-07-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
China 'is preparing to launch industrial-scale forced organ harvesting', as Beijing reveals plans to triple number of transplant facilities in province home to Uyghur Muslims
China is preparing to dramatically scale up forced organ donations from Uyghur Muslims and other persecuted minorities, rights groups have claimed. A statement published in December 2024 by China's National Health Commission announced plans to triple the number of medical facilities capable of performing organ transplants in the Xinjiang region, home to the vast majority of Uyghurs in the country. Six new transplant institutions are due to be built by the end of the decade, bringing the region's total to nine, according to the Plan for the Establishment of Human Organ Transplant Hospitals in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (2024–2030), issued by Chinese authorities. The expanded facilities will reportedly be authorised to perform transplants of all major organs, including hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys and pancreas. But official figures show Xinjiang's voluntary organ donation rate stands at just 0.69 donors per million people – less than one-sixth of the national average of 4.6. The move has prompted warnings from rights campaigners and international human rights experts who say the planned expansion aims to fuel industrial-scale organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience. 'This massive expansion in Xinjiang, a region already under scrutiny for systematic repression, raises deeply troubling questions about where the organs will come from,' said Dr Wendy Rogers, Chair of the Advisory Board at the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC). 'There is simply no justification for such growth in transplant capacity given the region's official organ donation rate, which is far below the national average.' The planned expansion outlined by the National Health Commission includes facilities across northern, southern and eastern Xinjiang, including in the capital Urumqi. Of the nine total hospitals set to be operational by 2030, seven will perform heart transplants, five will offer lung transplants, four will carry out liver operations, and five will conduct kidney and pancreas procedures. Critics say this network will far outpace the needs of the region's population, suggesting that the only reasonable explanation is that authorities are planning to forcibly harvest organs from detainees. It is estimated that between 60,000 and 100,000 transplants are conducted in China each year - vastly more than the country's official donation system can support. Since 2006, practitioners of the Buddhist practice of Falun Gong have been the primary victim group of forced organ harvesting, with the Uyghur population now thought to be at risk. MailOnline previously covered the nightmarish story of Cheng Pei Ming, a rural villager and Falun Gong practitioner from China's Shandong Province, who endured unimaginable suffering from forced organ transplants before eventually escaping and making his way to the United States. Although China claimed in 2015 to have ceased using organs from executed prisoners, no legal reforms accompanied the announcement, and harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience was never explicitly outlawed. Meanwhile, Uyghur Muslims held in Chinese detention camps have reported undergoing blood tests, ultrasounds and other organ-focused medical scans, procedures consistent with assessing organ compatibility. 'The concept of informed, voluntary consent is meaningless in Xinjiang's carceral environment,' said David Matas, a veteran human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize nominee who has investigated forced organ harvesting in China for nearly two decades. 'Given the systemic repression, any claim that donations are voluntary should be treated with the utmost scepticism.' 'The lack of legal safeguards, the history of abuse, and the ongoing repression in Xinjiang all point to the urgent need for independent scrutiny of this transplant expansion,' added Dr Maya Mitalipova, a geneticist who has testified before the US Congress about reverse organ matching techniques and biometric surveillance in China. 'This could be industrial-scale organ harvesting under a state-controlled system.' The United Nations and several democratic governments have repeatedly voiced concern over credible reports of forced organ harvesting and systemic repression of Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, and other minority groups in China. In June 2021, twelve UN special rapporteurs and human rights experts raised the alarm over allegations that minorities in Chinese detention were subjected to blood tests and organ scans without consent. Their findings suggested that results were entered into a national database used to allocate organs. Recent political momentum in the US has seen a flurry of legislative action, including the introduction of the 'Falun Gong Protection Act' in March 2025, and the passing of the 'Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act' in the House in May. State-level legislation banning collaboration with Chinese transplant institutions has also been adopted in Arizona, Texas, Utah, Idaho and Tennessee. Campaigners now want the international community to pressure Beijing for full transparency over the Xinjiang expansion plans. Those subjected to forced organ harvesting endure horrific treatment and are slowly deprived of life piece by piece. The depravity of the practice was unmasked last year by Falun Gong practitioner Cheng, who spent several years incarcerated and forcibly donated parts of several of his organs. Between 1999 and 2006, he faced relentless persecution for his religious and spiritual beliefs by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and endured several periods of detention during which he is believed to have been repeatedly tortured. In one of the most chilling episodes of his captivity, Cheng was taken to a hospital where doctors pressured him into signing consent forms for surgery. When he refused, he was immediately injected with an unknown substance, which knocked him out. He awoke with a massive incision down the left side of his chest, and scans have since confirmed that segments of Cheng's liver and lung had been removed. While Cheng lay in bed, photos depicting the aftermath of his forced surgery were taken and sent to - a website sharing information on Falun Gong that also publishes news about the persecution of its practitioners. Cheng is clearly seen unconscious and chained to the bed in the images, which he suspects were taken by a shocked nurse or hospital worker. Subsequent medical examinations conducted in the US confirmed that segments 2 and 3 of Cheng's left liver lobe and half of the left lower lobe of his lung were missing. The removal of liver segments aligns with a technique developed in the 1990s for paediatric liver transplants, prompting experts to conclude Cheng was used as an unwilling organ donor - as well as highly unethical medical experimentation. In March 2006, after initiating a hunger strike, Cheng was hospitalised again - but this time he claims he was told he'd have to undergo another unspecified surgery, even though he had not ingested any foreign objects. Realising he was about to face another brutal surgery and almost certain death, he staged a daring escape. Hours before his operation was due to be performed, he asked the guard monitoring his room overnight to take him to the toilet. Upon returning to the room, Cheng said the guard forgot to shackle him to the bedframe, and a short while later, fell asleep in his chair. Cheng seized the golden opportunity, sneaking out of the room before fleeing via the hospital's internal fire stairs and flagging down a taxi. That escape marked the beginning of a long journey to freedom that took Cheng across international borders and through countless challenges on a 14-year campaign to avoid the Chinese authorities. After nine years on the run in his native land, he managed to flee the country and settle in Thailand, where he spent another five years looking over his shoulder until he was eventually granted UN refugee status. In July 2020, Cheng completed his bid for freedom when he landed safely in the United States, where he now acts as an advocate for ETAC.
Telegraph
03-07-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
China ‘to triple number of Uyghur organ-harvesting centres'
China is to triple the number of facilities it uses to forcibly harvest the organs of detained Uyghur people, it has been claimed. Experts have raised the alarm after it emerged that the Xinjiang Health Commission, a branch of China's national health authority, plans to build six new medical centres by 2030, bringing the total in the region to nine – more than any other province in the country. The expansion has heightened concerns over China's treatment of Uyghur people, against whom the government already stands accused of genocide. Beijing has also been accused of forcibly harvesting the organs of prisoners from minority groups and, in some cases, selling them to wealthy recipients willing to pay the equivalent of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds. An international tribunal, conducted in the UK in 2019, found that as many as 100,000 organ transplants had been carried out in China annually – nearly three times the number that its government reported to the international register. Sayragul Sauytbay, a Kazakh doctor who was previously detained in Xinjiang, has spoken publicly about camp-wide 'health checks' where detainees had their blood tested and, depending on their results, were then sorted into groups. She began to notice that those who were given a pink check mark would soon disappear, concluding it was because of 'organ harvesting'. While the decision to build the new facilities was made in December last year, the plans have only recently been made public by End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC), an Australia-based campaign group. Targeting Uyghurs The 2019 tribunal determined that the organs of marginalised detainees in China were being forcefully harvested, sometimes when the patients were still alive, to serve a transplant trade worth over $1 billion (£733 million). While China has a voluntary organ donation scheme, Wendy Rogers, the chairman of ETAC's advisory board, told The Telegraph that in many cases they were harvested forcefully, including from otherwise healthy prisoners against their will and who are slowly killed as their organs are removed. Earlier this year, it was estimated that at least half a million Uyghurs were in prisons or detention centres. They have also faced decades of persecution by the Chinese government, including mass detention and forced sterilisation. Given the history of abuse against the Uyghurs, of whom there are 10 million in Xinjiang, there is concern that the new transplant facilities will result in more forced organ harvesting among the population. Xinjiang has a much smaller population and lower organ donation rate than other provinces in China, which makes the decision to expand facilities in the region suspicious. The new centres would provide Xinjiang with nine organ transplant facilities for a population of only 26 million people. By contrast, Guizhou province has only three facilities for its much larger population of 39 million people. Xinjiang's official donation rate is also much lower than that of other parts of the country. It has only 0.69 donors per million people, compared to the national average of 4.6. 'The concept of informed, voluntary consent is meaningless in Xinjiang's carceral environment,' said David Matas, an international human rights lawyer who has previously investigated organ harvesting in China. 'Given the systemic repression, any claim that donations are voluntary should be treated with the utmost scepticism.' Even before the new facilities were announced, Xinjiang was known as a hub for organ transplants. In the province's capital Urumqi, its airport has green arrows on the ground – known as 'Green Passage' lanes – to fast-track the transit of those transporting organs. The new facilities, four of which will be built in Urumqi, will add to the types of transplants that can be carried out by increasing the province's capacity to harvest hearts, kidneys, livers, small intestines and lungs. Dr Rogers told The Telegraph that the new facilities would likely allow for the 'donation' and implantation of organs to happen at the same place. 'It would be more cost-effective to bring the recipients to Xinjiang for their operations rather than send the organs out because it shortens the time in between taking the organ out of the person who's killed and putting it into the recipient,' said Dr Rogers. 'If you have to fly a heart for six hours across China, it's not going to be in such a good condition as a six-minute walk down the corridor.' Wealthy recipients The recipients are usually wealthy individuals who pay huge sums of money for organs that they would normally have to wait much longer for elsewhere. According to the 2019 tribunal, individuals will pay tens of thousands of pounds to get on a waiting list, then the organ itself can cost another tens of thousands, plus separate fees charged by the doctor and anaesthetist. One kidney transplant patient who spoke at the tribunal explained that he paid RMB350,000 (£35,600) for the organ, then RMB86,000 (£8,760) for the surgery, as well as RMB50,000 (£5,100) as a 'bonus' to the doctor, which came to a total of RMB486,000 (£49,500). Kidneys are not even among the most expensive organs. 'The most valuable are the heart and the liver because you can't live without a heart or with liver failure,' said Dr Rogers. 'So these are the most expensive organs.' Some of the transplants can cost as much as $100,000 (£72,000), she added. Additional bribes are also given to blood banks and doctors to ensure recipients are given 'high-quality' organs, sources told the tribunal. While some of the recipients are wealthy Chinese nationals, there is also an international market. Dr Rogers said that there seemed to be a demand in the Middle East, and, every so often, there are advertisements in Arab-language media about travelling to China for an organ transplant. Long-running industry Earlier victims of China's organ harvesting were practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that is banned in China, though the tribunal said that Uyghurs had also been targeted. Falun Gong followers were believed to be ideal donors because they do not smoke or drink and live relatively healthy lives. Dr Rogers noted that, as practising Muslims, most Uyghurs also do not drink. The tribunal found that, 'beyond a reasonable doubt', China had killed prisoners of conscience to extract their organs, which amounted to crimes against humanity. Cheng Pei Ming, a Falun Gong practitioner, spoke to The Telegraph last year about how parts of his lung and liver were forcibly removed. He explained that in 2004, he was dragged into a hospital against his will, where he was drugged. He woke up three days later, shackled to a bed, with an incision in his chest. Congressman Chris Smith, who authored the Bill, said that the practice was 'murder masquerading as medicine' and pushed forward the legislation, which would impose sanctions on anyone involved in the trade. In 2015, China also said it would stop sourcing organs from executed prisoners. However, there is no sign that the actual law has been changed. 'Without meaningful oversight and accountability, this expansion risks becoming a front for continued crimes against humanity and genocide,' said Ramila Chanisheff, the president of the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women's Association.
