NEWS: Chinese Beauty Products Made From the Skins of Chinese Executed Prisoners

Well don't I look silly...

Would you do me the favour of briefly describing a typical organ transplantation procedure? Maybe then I can reorder my arguments on sounder terminological foundations.

Originally posted by The Parallelogram
Well don't I look silly...

Would you do me the favour of briefly describing a typical organ transplantation procedure? Maybe then I can reorder my arguments on sounder terminological foundations.

I will try to be brief, as I could go on for pages.

Organs or organ systems have to go through a variety of hoops before they are donated. (My experience is primarily in the pediatric realm, but it would apply to adult transplants as well)

When a patient is brain dead, or spiraling down, the care team will call the Transplant donor network. The transplant team will arrive and do an evaluation of the patient.

They look at a list of items, but several key points they want to know:

1) has the patient had any down time?
2) Mechanism of illness: Trauma, Infection, head injury etc. This can make a difference. A patient that has had a traumatic brain injury is often a good source of organs.
3) Treatment course
4) Lab values, looks at liver, kidney function, etc etc etc
5) may do diagnostic tests if there are questions like a heart US etc.
6) Patients blood type which is used to match potential recipients.

After evaluating if the patient is a candidate, the team will approach the parents of the child or next of kin. The process is explained and if the parents consent, then the harvesting process is put into motion. It does take time so its not unheard of to keep a patient alive using a ventilator and other support for 12-36 hours.

Organ donors are listed by priority and that depends on a variety of factors like severity of illness (patients in ICU's are often at the top of the list. We actually had a child in the ICU that we kept alive for 3 days waiting for an liver when the previous transplanted one failed 13 hours after it was put in, they took it out and yes the kid did go home after the 2nd transplant)
Organs are offered in the region, then nationwide.

Once the recipients are identified and are heading to the hospital the harvest team arrives to begin the first step in the transplant. Organs are harvested in a specific fashion (I can't remember which go first) and flown to the hospitals doing the transplants. Kidneys are transplanted one at a time so one person with two good kidneys can help 2 people. Liver is another unique organ in that one of the lobes can be given to a small child and the remained to an adult (Parents can donate to thier child in the same manner aka living related donor)

Once all the organs needed are taken out, the patient is taken off bypass and dies.

Originally posted by The Parallelogram
Well don't I look silly...

Would you do me the favour of briefly describing a typical organ transplantation procedure? Maybe then I can reorder my arguments on sounder terminological foundations.

Well, my expertise is not in the medical field, so i doubt I could be of any help in explaining "typical organ transplants."

But, would you consider the people mentioned in the following report as criminals?....

Between July 20, 1999 and July 1, 2004, at least 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death in China. These practitioners, 52 percent of whom were female, had an average age of 44 years. A recent report alleges that organs from some of these dead Falun Gong practitioners had been removed.

Excerpted from.
www.asianresearch.org...

[edit on 15-9-2005 by Muaddib]

The following information from Amnesty international shows an even higher number of people being executed in China.

According to one estimate based upon internal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) documents, 60,000 people were executed in the four years from 1997-2001, an average of 15,000 people per year, although this figure includes extra-judicial killings, such as those killed during police operations including pursuit and apprehension.(2) Should this be the case, it would mean that the Chinese state chooses to execute or otherwise kills one person for every 86,000 head of population. The 1,060 judicial executions in China in 2002 recorded by Amnesty International is far more than the total executions recorded in the rest of the world combined; but if the figure is close to 15,000 per year, it would imply that China, with the largest population in the world, kills a higher proportion of its citizens than any other country, apart from Singapore which has one of the smallest populations.

Excerpted from.
web.amnesty.org...

Another interesting excerpt from Amnesty international.

The UN Human Rights Committee has determined that many categories of crime or specific offences do not fall within the "most serious crimes" stipulated in ICCPR Article 6(2). These include, "theft by force" and "crimes that do not result in loss of life".(18) Burglary is a capital offence under Article 264 of China’s Criminal Law, and the "serious circumstances" under which many violent offences become capital crimes in Chinese law are not limited to loss of life. Moreover, one of China’s foremost experts and commentators on the death penalty, Professor Zhao Bingzhi from People’s University in Beijing, states that 69% of capital crimes defined in China’s Criminal Law are non-violent.

Excerpted from.
web.amnesty.org...

Originally posted by Muaddib
The 1,060 judicial executions in China in 2002 recorded by Amnesty International is far more than the total executions recorded in the rest of the world combined; but if the figure is close to 15,000 per year, it would imply that China, with the largest population in the world, kills a higher proportion of its citizens than any other country...

And remember, this China that is the worlds biggest polluter and executioner is the same China that so many gleefully predict will replace the USA as the World's Superpower soon.

The value of human life in China it seems is based on the laws of supply and demand. The more people there are, the less individual life matters. People are just cogs in their machine. This is the true lesson that China ultimately has for the world and they are teaching by example.

Originally posted by Ambient Sound

And remember, this China that is the worlds biggest polluter and executioner is the same China that so many gleefully predict will replace the USA as the World's Superpower soon.

The value of human life in China it seems is based on the laws of supply and demand. The more people there are, the less individual life matters. People are just cogs in their machine. This is the true lesson that China ultimately has for the world and they are teaching by example.

I hear you Ambient Sound, I hear you.

But I am afraid that many people don't seem to care, and they will continue to cheer for China becoming the next superpower.

Originally posted by Ambient Sound
And remember, this China that is the worlds biggest polluter

Thats not correct

The United States emits around a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases,

[...]

China and India, the second- and third-leading producers of greenhouse gases, respectively, are exempt from the requirements of the protocol.

American Chemical Society

Originally posted by Muaddib
But I am afraid that many people don't seem to care, and they will continue to cheer for China becoming the next superpower.

Whilst I personally dont agree with the death penalty in any shape or form I have to wade into another of your frequent anti-China threads Muaddib.

What are your major beefs here, Muaddib?

1. The prisoners being executed by China dont warrant the death penalty in your eyes?

2. China is harvesting human organs and products from dead prisoners?

Well the first beef is rather subjective in my opinion. I dont believe that murderers should be executed yet your vaunted home country, the United States executes them. Does that mean that I can call the United States a great evil? Afterall, like you with China, I believe the United States executes people who shouldnt be killed. Same difference? Some how I dont think you will see that.

Your second beef is a purely ethical, and probably a religious argument. I'm with the poster who said that these organs are going to go to waste any way, so why not bring about some good from it? The same would apply to Americans executed for their crimes. I wouldnt have any ethical issues with their body parts saving the lives of other Americans.

Historically, the Chinese have not had the same sanctity placed on human life as we do in the West. Does that automatically make them evil or just different to us? Take the Indian's for example, they probably think we Westerners are evil because we dont revere our cattle. Im not equating humans with cattle, just showing that cultural differences should not be used as a basis for moral judgements, thats so 19th century Muaddib.

It amuses me that people have ethical objections here. The fact that these people are having their lives forcibly taken from them doesnt register a blip on your morality radar, but dare to take their organs from them without their permission and thats abhorrant. Why? Whats the moral difference between executing some one and taking their organs to save another living person?

Disregarding all this, and assuming that we have the moral authourity to be making judgment calls about entire civilizations, why are our governments trading and acquiescing to the Chinese? Does that make our governments accomplices to Chinese wrong-doings? Afterall where are the UN sanctions over these apparent abominations and afronts to our moral senses? Could it be that we hold trade and money above everything else? Well theres a moral question for you Muaddib.

[edit on 15/9/05 by subz]

Your descriptions of the transplant procedure inevitably lead me to a question Muaddib; if a prisoner has been shot in the head (a-la execution, Chinese style), how long would a transplant team have to remove needed organs before those organs would be considered useless? The article mentions that vans are used to dismember the executed, so it seems the organs are still good for some few minutes after death anyway.

Subz I suspect you have raised a moral question for a lot of us. I'm trying right now to think this question through myself. Unlike you, I am not opposed to the death penality for some crimes committed under particularly henious circumstances, so I suppose the initial difference (for me anyway) is really a matter of degree. I'll have to think on this question some more, as I do see your point.

I recall reading a science fiction novel some years back where the central theme of the story was centered around this very question. The civilization in the story started harvesting the organs of executed criminals when they got so good at transplants that rejection and other complications had become a thing of the past. The demand for transplantable organs far exceeded the supply available, even after they started using the organs of executed criminals, so they started making less and less serious crimes subject to the death penality just so they could get more such organs. As I remember, the story got to the point where one could be executed just for spitting on the sidewalk.

[edit on 15-9-2005 by Astronomer68]

Originally posted by Astronomer68
Your descriptions of the transplant procedure inevitably lead me to a question Muaddib;
......................

It was FredT the one to explain to us the transplant procedures.
He is better qualified to respond to your question.

How about it FredT, can you enlighten us (me anyway)? The thought of those vans harvesting organs keeps generating some grusome visuals inside my head. I keep seeing blood & gore flying about as the surgical team races to extract what they want. This naturally leads me to another question, which is, if the criminal is to be executed anyway, why not just take the living organs from the living prisoner until the prisoner dies at some point simply from the lack of those organs.

[edit on 15-9-2005 by Astronomer68]

Originally posted by subz

Whilst I personally dont agree with the death penalty in any shape or form I have to wade into another of your frequent anti-China threads Muaddib.

Unlike some of your own posts subz, I don't exagerate, I report the facts.

Originally posted by subz

What are your major beefs here, Muaddib?

Major beefs? If you put it that way my mayor beef with this is that the Chinese government continues to use the death penalty on mostly innocent people, just so they can harvest organs and sell them. They are using people as if they were cattle being sent to a slaughterhouse for it's products, and most of these people are innocent of serious crimes as the facts in those links I gave state.

Originally posted by subz
Does that mean that I can call the United States a great evil? Afterall, like you with China, I believe the United States executes people who shouldnt be killed. Same difference? Some how I dont think you will see that.

Same difference?... so in your opinion it is exactly the same to execute civilians who have never murdered anyone or done any other serious crimes just for their body parts and the death penalty for people that have commited hienous crimes like raping and killing a child? I feel pity for you subz if you can't see the difference....

Originally posted by subz
Your second beef is a purely ethical, and probably a religious argument.

I have stated several times that I am not a religious person, so your point is mute.

Originally posted by subz
..........
Im not equating humans with cattle, just showing that cultural differences should not be used as a basis for moral judgements, thats so 19th century Muaddib.

So, I guess according to you it is in the best interest of the world, and since we have entered a new century, to view the processing and harvesting of human body parts from people that have been executed just because of those body parts, not as a basis for moral judgements and certainly not as an abhorrent practice, but instead as what.....a sign of good changes into a new millenium?.....

Originally posted by subz
It amuses me that people have ethical objections here. The fact that these people are having their lives forcibly taken from them doesnt register a blip on your morality radar, but dare to take their organs from them without their permission and thats abhorrant.

i ahve actually been objecting to the lives of those innocent civilians being taken from them just for body parts....but i guess that argument was lost in your quest to demonize me once again....

Originally posted by subz
Why? Whats the moral difference between executing some one and taking their organs to save another living person?

The difference is that in the one hand you have the Chinese government killing people just to harvest organs, most of those people being innocent and never having done any serious crimes, like raping and killing a child, while the Chinese kill people just for harvesting organs. There is a difference subz....

Originally posted by subz
Disregarding all this, and assuming that we have the moral authourity to be making judgment calls about entire civilizations, why are our governments trading and acquiescing to the Chinese? Does that make our governments accomplices to Chinese wrong-doings? Afterall where are the UN sanctions over these apparent abominations and afronts to our moral senses? Could it be that we hold trade and money above everything else? Well theres a moral question for you Muaddib.

[edit on 15/9/05 by subz]

The governments have been trying to stop the Chinese from doing this subz, but unless you want us to go into a nuclear war I don't think the CHinese government is ever going to stop.

Originally posted by Astronomer68
Where in hell did you come up with this info Muaddib?--This is just gross. Makes me wonder if any lamp shades or other exotic things are being made.

[edit on 15-9-2005 by Astronomer68]

What brought on the Lamp shades Astronomer? Let me guess; you had visions of Ed Gein the Wisconsin Psycho?

If nothing else and I assume every part of it is true, sure makes a good conspiracy.

That's capitalism and the value-added chain for you.

I have a question. Who owns the body of a homo sapiens in China when it is alive? Who owns it when it is dead?

Originally posted by The Parallelogram
The prisoner is already dead.

A patient in dire need of an organ is not.

this wholem thing is truly sick and the sooner the import of these beauty products is banned the better.

On the point of organ donation, I am a kidney patient and on the waiting list for one. There is no way I would accept a organ from such a source as this! There is no ethical justification for the execution of political and religious prisoners and certainly no ethical justification for the use of organs from these people!!

My father would still be alive if there had been a heart available for transplantation when his own failed a few years ago.

Because of this, I don't feel that it is fair to deny the use of suitable and readily available organs to patients facing death if they don't recieve a transplant.

All other ethical issues are moot in comparison, if you ask me.

Whether or not the process is being carried out in a suitable manner by these specific individuals in China is a non-issue. One can hardly use China as a benchmark for the ethical treatment of human beings, and if an organ-harvesting process of this sort were to be implemented in Europe or America, I am sure it would be controlled a little bit better.

To claim that because China isn't doing this properly means that it ought not to be done at all is downright farcical, though.

Originally posted by Astronomer68
Your descriptions of the transplant procedure inevitably lead me to a question Muaddib; if a prisoner has been shot in the head (a-la execution, Chinese style), how long would a transplant team have to remove needed organs before those organs would be considered useless?

As I tried to outline above, it takes time. Someone shot in the head had about 2 -4 minutes before the tissues beging to get hypoxic and die. Nor it it wasy to stop the bleeding from a head shot. So even if there is a medical team standing by, you have to get the patient on Bypass and hope that the organs are okay, then you also have to have patients in the hospital ready to wisk off the OR as soon as the organs arrive and they have to be a match.

Originally posted by subz
Whilst I personally dont agree with the death penalty in any shape or form I have to wade into another of your frequent anti-China threads Muaddib.
1. The prisoners being executed by China dont warrant the death penalty in your eyes?
2. China is harvesting human organs and products from dead prisoners?

Your second beef is a purely ethical, and probably a religious argument.

Okay then. I think I have put forth more anti China articles than Muaddib so I will wade into this one. This story like others I have put forth has been backed up by 1) China's frequent efforts to show that they have a brutal government and commit crimes against humanity on an almost routine basis.

As he has pointed out in the Communist paradise, the death penalty is and can be applied to the Falun Gong, Tibetan Monks, Pro Democracy supporters, political dissidents, etc etc etc.

In regards to taking the organs:

1) How would you like it if you had a family member that did not want to donate and yet you found out they had gone ahead when he/she had been in an accident without the permission from them or the family.

2) How long till we have "Oooops sorry fella, you have the right blood type, a nd your kidneys fetch a high price, see ya next life) or worse, living donor banks. What a kidney, liver lobe, some small intestine, a lung among imprisoned friends no?

Ethical issues you bet HUGE ones. I am surprised by the callous replies, Eh? They are prisoners, that okay. I'm sure Dr. mengela thought EXACTLY the same way :shk:

Religious issues? Nope, I'm an atheist

Originally posted by shots

What brought on the Lamp shades Astronomer? Let me guess; you had visions of Ed Gein the Wisconsin Psycho?

If nothing else and I assume every part of it is true, sure makes a good conspiracy.

Shots that was a reference to a crime committed by the Nazi's against the Jews during World War II.