Crazy Canucks can’t get enough cheap Chinese organs
We’re going to hear a lot over the next couple years about nationalizing healthcare in America. But before you hop on that train, take a look at what’s going on up north. With waiting lists for organ transplants running 4,000+ people strong in Canada’s nationalized healthcare system, droves of crazy Canucks are heading over to China in search of cheap human organs. According to a report ...
We're going to hear a lot over the next couple years about nationalizing healthcare in America. But before you hop on that train, take a look at what's going on up north. With waiting lists for organ transplants running 4,000+ people strong in Canada's nationalized healthcare system, droves of crazy Canucks are heading over to China in search of cheap human organs. According to a report released Wednesday by David Kilgour, Canada's former secretary of state for the Asia Pacific region, and David Matas, a human rights lawyer, the organs are mainly being harvested from Chinese prisoners, particularly Falun Gong practitioners.
Much of the harvesting, Kilgour and Matas report, is being done by China's military. "Recipients often tell us that even when they receive transplants at civilian hospitals, those conducting the operation are military personnel,'' the report said. The going price for a People's Liberation Army kidney is about $52,000. As many as 100 Canadians have traveled to China to have transplants in recent years.
Matas had this to say:
We’re going to hear a lot over the next couple years about nationalizing healthcare in America. But before you hop on that train, take a look at what’s going on up north. With waiting lists for organ transplants running 4,000+ people strong in Canada’s nationalized healthcare system, droves of crazy Canucks are heading over to China in search of cheap human organs. According to a report released Wednesday by David Kilgour, Canada’s former secretary of state for the Asia Pacific region, and David Matas, a human rights lawyer, the organs are mainly being harvested from Chinese prisoners, particularly Falun Gong practitioners.
Much of the harvesting, Kilgour and Matas report, is being done by China’s military. “Recipients often tell us that even when they receive transplants at civilian hospitals, those conducting the operation are military personnel,” the report said. The going price for a People’s Liberation Army kidney is about $52,000. As many as 100 Canadians have traveled to China to have transplants in recent years.
Matas had this to say:
Everywhere else in the world, you have recipients waiting for donors. In China, it’s the reverse, donors are waiting for recipients. Once a customer arrives into China somebody is killed for the organ.”
And it’s not just China—it’s unbelievable how global the phenomenon of organ harvesting has become. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a prominent professor of medical anthropology at Berkeley, broke down the numbers on it for FP in this eye-opening piece:
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