Internet company offers organs from executed Chinese prisoners

December 12, 2005

An Internet based company, Transplantsinternational.com has begun selling transplants of kidneys from executed Chinese prisoners, at a price of £23,000. The company states, 'A cadaveric kidney comes from a dead person and in the majority of cases in China, the dead people are prisoners, which allows for us to know at least two weeks ahead of time when the kidney will be ready.'

The prisoners apparently give their consent and are told that their families will receive money for the 'donation'. Human rights groups generally oppose such means of obtaining transplants as "organ harvesting" which makes human rights abuses more profitable, and exploits poorer populations.

Amnesty International reports that China carried out 3,400 executions in 2004, which is 90% of all executions worldwide.