All guts, no glory: Dr. Thomas Diflo, the first American doctor to talk publicly about the issue
(photo: Rebecca Cooney)
(photo: Rebecca Cooney)
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All guts, no glory: Dr. Thomas Diflo, the first American doctor to talk publicly about the issue (photo: Rebecca Cooney) |
hree years ago, Dr. Thomas Diflo's moral nightmare walked into his examination room: a patient freshly implanted with a kidney bought from China's death row, where prisoners are killed—sometimes for minor offenses—and their organs harvested.
Since then, Dr. Diflo, director of the renal transplant program at the New York University Medical Center, has seen half a dozen such people, typically young Chinese American women. The surgeon says his patients weren't distressed about snatching organs from the condemned, but he was overwhelmed by the implications.
Unable to shoulder the burden alone, on January 11, Diflo took his "horror at a real ethical quagmire" to the medical center's Ethics Committee.
Diflo is the first American doctor to talk publicly about this experience, and he did so only after being drawn out by the Voice. The gruesome practice has been documented among ethnic Chinese communities throughout Asia, but so far every attempt to prove that people were leaving U.S. soil to buy organs from China's massive death row has failed.
"To tell you the truth, the original rationale for bringing this situation to the Ethics Committee was my own discomfort in taking care of these patients. I was outraged at the way in which they obtained their organs, and I had a great deal of difficulty separating that fact from the care of the patient," Diflo told the Voice.
"Several patients were very up-front and candid about it, that they bought an organ taken from an executed convict for about $10,000," Diflo recalls. "Most of the patients are ecstatic to be off of dialysis, and none has seemed particularly perturbed regarding the source of the organs."
There's no telling how many kidney buyers returning to the U.S. have gone for follow-up care at a less elite institution or stayed within secretive medical channels recommended by their brokers. Diflo gets his patients on referral from recognized hospitals. "Patients sort of arrive on their doorstep and they don't know what to do. Not everybody who's had a transplant is cared for by a transplant specialist. I tend to see the more complicated ones," Diflo says.
Of all medical disciplines, organ transplantation is perhaps the most bittersweet. Transplants are gifts that coax life from death, that close the door for one person while opening the future for another. But the outright sale of organs is abhorrent to nearly all surgeons in the field. Selling organs is a felony under a 1984 federal law that was spearheaded by then senator Al Gore, and is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000. Live or executed prisoners in the U.S. are forbidden to donate an organ, even for free, except to family members under special circumstances.
In China, human rights groups say, citizens have been executed for nonviolent offenses like taking bribes, credit card theft, small-scale tax evasion, and stealing truckloads of vegetables. Political dissidents have also been sentenced to death. Chinese embassy officials did not respond to requests for comment, but in the past the government has denied promoting the for-profit organ trade.
Diflo says he and his colleagues wrestled with the issue in a debate that was "quite lively and revealing, but the bottom line was that we take care of patients who come to us, regardless of their situation—moral, ethical, financial, or social. Although I might find what they had done reprehensible, I was still nonetheless obligated to care for them in the best way that I knew how, and that is what I do."
But Diflo refuses to let it end at that. "Because it is not really appropriate for me to take my outrage out on the patients who come to me, I began to think that I would be better off addressing the root problem, the pilfering of organs from prisoners in China. That is what pushed me to pursue this further," he says. And so he's going public.
America-based human rights activists have sought this break for years.
The trafficking of human organs from Chinese executions to American residents is "something we've always known was going on but something we've never been able to document," says an American investigator working for the Laogai Research Foundation, a group founded by renowned human rights crusader Harry Wu and named for the gulags of China.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation partnered with Wu in 1998 in a sting operation aimed at netting two suspected organ brokers who resided in Queens. Wu posed as a board member of a renal clinic in Aruba and got the men, Wang Cheng Yong and Fu Xingqi, to not only arrange for patients to fly to China for kidneys but to also smuggle corneas, which can keep for weeks when frozen, for sale abroad. The case was dismissed when a key witness fled the U.S. and refused to return to testify. The Laogai Research Foundation also discovered a doctor advertising himself as an organ broker in a Chinese-language newspaper published in the U.S. But no physical evidence was ever uncovered. In 1998, the FBI raided the Los Angeles offices of a man the feds said had presented himself as an organ broker, but it's unclear whether the scheme led to any transplants.
When told that an American doctor was revealing his experiences, the laogai investigator, who asked that she not be identified because it would make her work in China impossible, pointed out that the opening comes at a critical time. Executions in China have surged to 400 in April alone as the Communist government conducts another of its periodic "strike hard" crackdowns on crime. During the most recent campaign, in 1996, more than 4000 prisoners were killed, she said.
Even in a normal year China executes more inmates than in all other nations combined, reports Amnesty International. In 1999, the confirmed toll reached 1263, according to the organization, which gathers its statistics from tallies published, for propaganda purposes, in government-run newspapers.
"It's for scaring criminals and scaring— controlling—society," the investigator says. The approach is known as "killing the chicken to scare the monkey."
Executions often come in floods, usually around the holidays, according to the investigator. This week, with the Labor Day celebrations that started May 1, is viewed by Chinese doctors as a particularly good time to get an organ, but there's no better time than the Lunar New Year, she added. Most—perhaps 70 percent—of the hospitals performing the procedures are run by the military, which has the best connections to the penal system and can be present at executions, she explains. Money from patients purchasing organs is dispersed among those who provide access to the prisoner's body. Hospitals even pay judges to tip them off when they sentence a suitable donor to death. "The money goes to officials all of the way up the line," she says. "It goes to the courts, the people in charge of the prisons. It goes to the doctors, the hospitals, everything."
The Laogai Research Foundation reports that sometimes tens of operations are done at the same hospital on the same day for patients who are essentially walk-ins. China says it has performed about 25,000 transplants in 20 years, but makes no distinction between organs culled from executions and those garnered through accidents and live donors.
Forced labor from China's laogai has always been a source of cash for the country's rapidly advancing economy. And punishment doesn't necessarily end at the point of death, usually a single shot to the back of the head. Families are often forced to pay for the bullet used. But the laogai turned into Execution, Inc. less than 20 years ago after the introduction of Cyclosporine, an immunosuppressant drug that prevents rejection of organs by the recipient's body.
Wei Jingsheng, an agitator at Columbia University's Human Rights Center, testified before the International Relations Committee and Government Reform & Oversight Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on June 4, 1998, that while he was on death row a guard confided that often organ removal is the means of execution in and of itself. Wei, who now heads his own foundation in Washington, D.C., stated that the guard told him, "There are almost no exceptions. They first are given anesthesia. Just the same as killing a pig. . . . We use cloth to wrap them up and bring them to the execution ground. No one cares if they are alive or dead."
Further, Wei said he had confirmed, through a plan hatched with a 20-year-old cellmate, that executed prisoners were being harvested against their will. The young man, whom he called Zhang, was to cry out, "I'm not sick, I don't need a doctor," if he saw a medical team equipped to harvest his organs waiting at his execution. If there was no evidence of this, Zhang was to scream as the condemned normally would.
After a long stretch of silence, Zhang sent the message. "My first feeling was of satisfaction, knowing that this evidence finally proved this practice. But this feeling was quickly replaced by another," Wei told the congressional committees. "My second feeling was of heaviness, knowing that this young man used his life to record an unbelievable crime. If I did not have the opportunity to tell others of this evil, if I did not have the opportunity to try and stop this evil from continuing, then I would have to apologize to this young man. All this time, I have deeply felt this responsibility. We must stop this practice."
Harry Wu spent 19 years in the laogai, and has also testified before Congress. His Laogai Research Foundation claims that when bullets are used, the target reflects the market: a shot to the head when a liver's wanted, a shot to the chest when corneas are in demand. Amnesty International also reports that a form of lethal injection gaining acceptance in China can be used to kill without damaging crucial organs, and can blur the line between life and death.
Young, nonsmoking prisoners are given blood tests and medical exams to assess compatibility with arriving patients, the investigator explains, and courts set execution dates accordingly.
Long before the U.S. and China clashed in the spy plane incident, the West was wary of the emerging superpower. Wei and Wu have edged the organ trade into the human rights spotlight on China, an arena already crowded with accusations of prison and child labor, coerced abortions, and suppression of religious minorities and Tibetan national aspirations. The nation's trade surplus with America, chilling of freedoms in Hong Kong, and occasional saber rattling at Taiwan have done little to soften sentiments in Washington. Business interests striving to engage China as a strategic ally, rather than competitor—through most-favored-nation trade status, membership in the World Trade Organization, and support for its bid to host the Olympics—may have a tougher row to hoe now that Diflo is delivering the goods on an explosive Chinese crime that touches on American soil.
Suddenly, what had existed largely as a kind of urban legend, a science-fiction horror story from a distant world, has become very, very real, right here on the streets of New York. Activists say that if it's happening here, it's likely happening in other large cities of North America, from Boston and San Francisco to Vancouver and Los Angeles.
The Chinese government published regulations in 1990—"On the Use of Dead Bodies or Organs From Condemned Criminals"—stating that for a prisoner to be a donor, prior consent must be given by that person or remaining family, unless the body is unclaimed. Human rights activists scoff at that statement, noting that since prisoners are often kept from communicating with family members, there is no one to claim the body, which is harvested and cremated almost immediately. The government also requires that medical teams involved in the procurement of organs act stealthily: "Surgical vans must not display hospital logos; surgeons must not wear hospital uniforms when at the execution site; guards must be present until the organ is removed; and the corpses should be promptly cremated following the removal of the organs."
Human rights groups seeking to determine the source of organs might try matching the dates of operations to dates of executions in the same city, but the method isn't reliable, especially since the government has taken to selectively publicizing its tallies. The Laogai Research Foundation says doctors speaking for the Chinese government claim regulations against contacting the family of a donor prevent them from revealing to patients where the organs come from.
The harvesting enrages physicians like Dr. Diflo. "I think it's a gross violation of human rights and very much at odds with what the transplant community tries to promulgate as the way to go about things. This does not involve appropriate consent. I don't think prisoners are given the option of donating or not donating. It's not done from an altruistic point of view," Diflo says. Even putting aside his reservations about the death penalty, Diflo says, "The central issue is the nonconsensual taking of organs and making human body parts a commodity."
The Laogai investigator agrees. "It's very obviously profit-motivated because if the person can pay extra then they might be able to move up an execution date, or have it arranged for later," she says. "And those who pay more get better treatment." She cites a case where an ethnic Chinese patient from Malaysia was allowed to die without anti-rejection medications when his money ran out.
The economics of human organtrafficking are powerful. Patients can live active lives on dialysis—thanks to this technology, most don't need a kidney to survive—but the inconvenience and discomfort are considerable. Diflo says his patients were "obviously much more troubled by being on dialysis than by getting organs this way."
For patients, the cost of a transplant is far cheaper than a lifetime of dialysis, says Dr. André-Jacques Neusy, head of the dialysis unit at Bellevue and director of the NYU School of Medicine Center for Global Health. Both Bellevue and NYU Medical Center work with Gouverneur hospital in Chinatown.
Bellevue is a public hospital, so it takes all comers. Many of the city's sick immigrants end up here. "We call it the 'Bellevue Express,' " because patients head there directly from the airport, remarks Neusy. In addition to being the designated facility for the president and visiting dignitaries, the hospital offers extensive translation services.
Affiliated with the NYU Medical Center, Bellevue is Dr. Diflo's chief source of referral patients who have Chinese prisoners' organs. People who receive a transplant must remain under a doctor's care for an extended period. Thus, patients who buy a kidney from China's death row end up seeking treatment in American hospitals, where the cost can be supported by public funding. Diflo says his patients pay for their anti-rejection drugs with Medicaid and Medicare.
Though no patient would be denied treatment at Bellevue when arriving with an organ of mysterious origin, candidates for domestic transplants must be legal American residents. Even for those eligible candidates the wait for an organ can be extraordinary. There are now more than 75,000 people on waiting lists for organs in the U.S., according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which maintains the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network under contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Fewer than a third of those people are likely to get their organs this year, the group said in March. Immigrants, both legal and illegal, will sometimes visit home rather than relocate, naturalize, or wait, Neusy says. "We've had patients disappear from the dialysis unit and reappear with a kidney," he notes. He was unaware of any who'd gone specifically for kidneys from executed prisoners in China. "It's disturbing to think we have professional colleagues on the other side that would condone this kind of thing," he says.
Dr. Nathan Thompson, also of Bellevue, concurs. "We have had patients who have gone against our advice and come back with transplants. Where they've gotten them I have no idea," Thompson says.
Another Bellevue physician, Dr. Gerald Villanueva, sent Diflo a Chinese American woman who had appeared at the hospital, implanted with a death row kidney. Suffering from hepatitis, the patient became one of the complicated cases referred to NYU. Only after talking to Diflo did Villanueva realize the source of her transplant. "I guess we've all heard about things like this, but it kind of gets you when, for the first time, you see it," he says. "There are things we read about, but when you see it, it's still surprising. I guess it shouldn't be, huh?"
Diflo says that doctors seeing scores of patients daily simply don't have time to probe more deeply into their patients' histories, especially when language is a barrier. And they're not paid to argue with their charges. "I don't really see that confronting them about the ethics involved will really serve any useful function. In addition, we see them during our office hours, in which we can see as many as 50 patients in three hours—not really time for prolonged ethical discussions," he says.
Most doctors interviewed for this article agreed that the majority of those organs aren't coming from China. There's a thriving black market in organs sold by live, willing donors in poorer nations with medical know-how, like India. "I believe that both are morally and ethically reprehensible," Diflo says. "If there are degrees of reprehensibility, however, China wins hands down" because the organs are coming from the executed, who are deprived the right of refusal, for profits. Unlike with desperately poor live donors, that's cash that neither the victims nor their survivors will ever see.
Nearly every country touched by the organ trade has laws barring the business; India and Japan are among those who've enacted them only in the past decade as the tide of the organ trade rose. In the United States, the practice of flying to China for organs becomes a crime if arrangements were made for a fee on American soil. But as with the war on drugs, many experts argue that the only real solution to fighting the organ trade is by addressing the demand. People need organs quickly, through humane means. Doctors interviewed floated several ideas.
The most ready cure is for more people to make provisions that their organs be donated at the time of death. Belgium achieves this by presuming organ donation, requiring that people opt out. The doctors noted that while organ donor cards (like those on drivers' licenses) might help tip the balance in discussions with family, the form isn't a binding agreement. Families can still have the final say. And even with that acceptance, families—parents—must be willing to say goodbye at times when they might falsely believe there's a shred of hope.
"Brain death is a hard concept to get across. Japan only recently accepted it as a legal definition," explains Dr. Dale Distant of the SUNY Downstate Medical Center. "How does a person take this action when their loved one is warm, his heart's going, a machine is making his lungs go up and down; when for all the world he's just in a coma?" In many corners of the world, including part of Asia, people hold strong, entrenched taboos against violating the body after death.
Dr. Neusy would like to create centers in less medically advanced nations where the needy might be screened and matched with potential donors, usually family members, and then prepared before finally being brought together to the U.S. and other rich nations for the operation. Others promote the free market as a way to meet the demand for organs. One group of supply-siders operates a Web site and on August 26, 1999, a kidney from a live potential donor was offered up on eBay before site managers closed the bidding down.
On the furthest fringe, some scientists are hoping to master techniques that might allow newborns in future generations to be equipped with a genetic repair kit—stem cells or other tissue frozen at birth or even later for eventual cloning into needed organs. Enterprises like the longevity company YouthCell have been founded on this premise. Scientists are also trying to perfect transplants from livestock into humans.
But social and technological change takes time. Meanwhile, no one expects Chinese bureaucrats to readily forsake an easy source of income like selling organs from the laogai. "If you have a government more or less imposed on the people, you can do that, so in China it's not a problem," says Distant.
Diflo, for his part, says he came forward not to seek attention for himself but in hopes of kicking off public discussion and scrutiny of the issue. "I don't see myself going on a world speaking tour," he says. "The whole reason I spoke up about this is that I was having a difficult time taking care of these patients because of my own repugnance at what had gone on and how things had happened. It really comes from a more personal place. It comes from my own outrage."
| Tell us what you think. editor@villagevoice.com | E-mail this story to a friend. |
FYI
FYI
FYI
Bump for now. Will read and bookmark. Thanks.
"Now One New York Doctor Knows the Rumors Are True."
Where is the evidence to support "Kill for organs"?
FYI
Where is the evidence to support "Kill for organs"?
Well, you can begin your research here:
The Laogai Research Foundation
Thanks for the heads up.
Best regards. S&W R.I.P.
Brain death is a hard concept to get across.
I'll say.
the Ethics Committee
but I'm sure they understand it.
Oops, just saw your flag.
"If there are degrees of reprehensibility, however, China wins hands down" because the organs are coming from the executed, who are deprived the right of refusal, for profits. Unlike with desperately poor live donors, that's cash that neither the victims nor their survivors will ever see.
Excuse me.If their families got cash it would be okay?I don't think so.
Dr. Diflo's hands appeared eerily red on my laptop's screen.
I am grateful that he spoke up, and that the Voice listened.
"Well, you can begin your research here:"
I saw the pictures. They are just showing the daily life of in a prison. I could find anyone being killed for organs.
One point this otherwise excellent essay misses is that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) operates many of the hospitals in the PRC where the transplants occur.
It's a tidy profit center.
I saw the pictures.
That's why they print newspapers in color -- who reads the articles, anyway?
And defense spending is always in jeopardy -- so why not?
"One point this otherwise excellent essay misses is that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) operates many of the hospitals in the PRC where the transplants occur."
How do you know that? Almost all elite hospitals in China are not military-affiliated.
"...they bought an organ taken from an executed convict for about $10,000," Diflo recalls. "Most of the patients are ecstatic to be off of dialysis, and none has seemed particularly perturbed regarding the source of the organs.""
You know, constantly imbibing the Socialist drivel that emanates from Communist Propaganda Machines must really corrupt a person's soul after a number of years. I'd like to believe all the evil that exists within China--and Cuba and Russia--is attributable to the Central Ruling Elite, but that'd be wishful thinking. These organ recipients have been brain-washed into believing these petty criminals deserved to die and they are simply benefitting from their passing. It's hard to understand how individuals could become so callous.
FReegards...MUD
Young, nonsmoking prisoners are given blood tests and medical exams to assess compatibility with arriving patients
Advice to Chinese dissidents: don't stop smoking.
I'd like to see Dr. Diflo blow the lid off this in front of a Congressional committee, but WTO for China's coming up, so not likely.
How do you know that?
I don't just look at the pictures.
Here, try your moral equivalence schtick on this one.
Dude, come on out. GreatWall needs help.
Thanks for flagging me--I think.
My husband was a dialysis patient for several years before he died.
Sadly, this organ thing is set aside by our congresscritters in favor of 'free' trade $$$$$$, among other things they look the other way at.
These organ recipients have been brain-washed into believing these petty criminals deserved to die and they are simply benefitting from their passing. It's hard to understand how individuals could become so callous.
A good point. I cannot empathize with someone in need of a transplant; nevertheless, it is these patients who are complicit in the barbarity of the Chinese Communist regime.
I'd like to see Dr. Diflo blow the lid off this in front of a Congressional committee, but WTO for China's coming up, so not likely.
Maybe Jesse Helms will invite him up to the Hill. This article helps bring the issue (well-known for many years) to critical mass; hopefully, the atrocity won't simply vanish into the morass of free-trade appeasement.
Sadly, this organ thing is set aside by our congresscritters in favor of 'free' trade $$$$$$, among other things they look the other way at.
Paging Dennis Hastert: Please pick up the white courtesy phone.
"I don't just look at the pictures."
So you simply speculate?
Chinese Sell Human Organs on the Internet
China Sells Organs of Slain Convicts
Execution in China: Through a Brother's Eyes
Capital Punishment and Capitalism,
One would think conservatives would love this
I don't particularly subscribe to involuntary organ harvesting or capital punishment for stealing a loaf of bread or smuggling Bibles, but maybe some do.
Obviously, the Communists do.
BUMP!
FYI
KEEP AMERICA STRONG
NO OLYMPICS !
NO PNTR !
NO WTO !
NO RESPECT !
PRODUCTS
TEXT CORRECTION
test
The Chinese government published regulations in 1990-"On the Use of Dead Bodies or Organs From Condemned Criminals"-stating that for a prisoner to be a donor, prior consent must be given by that person or remaining family, unless the body is unclaimed. Human rights activists scoff at that statement, noting that since prisoners are often kept from communicating with family members, there is no one to claim the body, which is harvested and cremated almost immediately. The government also requires that medical teams involved in the procurement of organs act stealthily: "Surgical vans must not display hospital logos; surgeons must not wear hospital uniforms when at the execution site; guards must be present until the organ is removed; and the corpses should be promptly cremated following the removal of the organs."
Unless there is a change of government, the greedy ruthless Communist Chinese will continue to profit from selling human organs.
Yeah but after an hour of getting a Chinese organ transplant, you want another. Seriously however, they are the blueprint of the nightmare social order usually associated with Hitler and the Third Reich. Of course being non-white and non-western, they get a pass by left-wingers, the media, and the general public schooled to see everything through the lens of race.
I think it has to do more with sharing the same philosophy. Hitler was a fascist, which the left despises, while the Chinese government is communist, which the left worships.
Unless there is a change of government, the greedy ruthless Communist Chinese will continue to profit from selling human organs.
Yes -- but I'm afraid that the PNTR deal only strengthens the mindset and ways of the regime.
Boycott bump.
One of the documentaries a year or so ago actually infiltrated the Chinese Organ business and filmed students being shot in the back of the head and then carted to tents where surgeons removed their organs and planted them into wealthy recipients....gave all the costs etc...e.g. had to fly on a Chinese Airline at say $8000 U.S. had to stay each day in a Chinese "hotel" at around $1000 a day etc etc etc I believe the total cost of an organ was close to $100,000 each and if I remember, the documentary said around 80,000 people were murdered each year to sell their organs.....livers, kidneys, skin, eyes, etc etc etc Someone who remembers the film documentary more vividly reply to me privately and via post and lets see if we can resurrect this thing
A Note...... the Hated Black Berets are being destroy by advice from our Representatives and Senators in Congress....FREEPERS DO YOU REALIZE YOU WON AND THEY LISTENED TO US ???? Lets all write our Congressmen and THANK THEM NOW for doing this....and continue to Boycott Chinese Junk See FOXNEWS for details...
The case was dismissed when a key witness fled the U.S. and refused to return to testify.
With apologies to Wallaby for bringing this thread back up (not my best Gay Pride moment): Lesbian Who Ruled on '99 Chinese Organ Trafficking Case Featured at Gay.com.
More links from Google.
The berets are being destroyed?
Before or after we paid for them?
The organ recipients are from the US, England, France, Germany, India, Australia, Belgium, Italy, Japan.....need I go on ?????? This is not news....I have known about the executions of Tiananmien Square students for organs for a long time now.... and is Great Wall a Chinese lurker ???
Contentious Objector....you are an idiot....and a contentious idiot at that
Hitler was not a fascist.....he was a socialist....and if you read his speeches to get in power they sound just like the left-wing today......Mussolini was a fascist never forget, Hitler was a "today's liberal"
Where is the evidence to support "Kill for organs"?
"Several patients were very up-front and candid about it, that they bought an organ taken from an executed convict for about $10,000," Diflo recalls.
Wei Jingsheng, an agitator at Columbia University's Human Rights Center, testified before the International Relations Committee and Government Reform & Oversight Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on June 4, 1998, that while he was on death row a guard confided that often organ removal is the means of execution in and of itself. Wei, who now heads his own foundation in Washington, D.C., stated that the guard told him, "There are almost no exceptions. They first are given anesthesia. Just the same as killing a pig. . . . We use cloth to wrap them up and bring them to the execution ground. No one cares if they are alive or dead."Further, Wei said he had confirmed, through a plan hatched with a 20-year-old cellmate, that executed prisoners were being harvested against their will. The young man, whom he called Zhang, was to cry out, "I'm not sick, I don't need a doctor," if he saw a medical team equipped to harvest his organs waiting at his execution. If there was no evidence of this, Zhang was to scream as the condemned normally would.
After a long stretch of silence, Zhang sent the message. "My first feeling was of satisfaction, knowing that this evidence finally proved this practice. But this feeling was quickly replaced by another," Wei told the congressional committees. "My second feeling was of heaviness, knowing that this young man used his life to record an unbelievable crime. If I did not have the opportunity to tell others of this evil, if I did not have the opportunity to try and stop this evil from continuing, then I would have to apologize to this young man. All this time, I have deeply felt this responsibility. We must stop this practice."
Unfortunately, nothing regarding the Chicoms surprises me.
5.56mm
Dear Senater Ensign & Rep. Gibbons,
I want to take time to say Thank You! ! I am sure without your efforts in protecting the "Pride and Honor of our American servicemen" they would be wearing berets from a Communist country. China, ugh !
My view of China is that they owe United States servicemen 264 days of Freedom. Eleven times twentyfour. When they determine what they can do to repay this debt then my wife and I will start buying products with "Made in China" stamped on the bottom. Until then, NEVER !
Again, we both say Thank You! !
Sincerely,
Dave & Ann
Thanks for the heads up!
You guys are wonderful....all take note....
From: http://remember.org/guide/Facts.root.hitler.html
Information abounds. Just go to Google and ask for Hitler and fascism… anyway the constraints of time don't allow me to go into details but this is just small example:
Nazism - The abbreviation for National Socialist German Worker's Party. The fascist dictatorship under Adolf Hitler in Germany from 1933-1945.
By the way, Mussolini, Hitler and Franco were fascists.
GreatWall member since April 27th, 2001
....And that's all I have to say about that.
Pro-boycott/anti-PNTR bump.
Define fascism.....I've read Hitler's speeches and positions auf Deutsch.....label the madman whatever...his views were a socialist despot
"I don't just look at the pictures."
ROTFL! Give it up, GreatWall.
his views were a socialist despot
A socialist fascist despot, indeed.
Define fascism.
Okay.
FASCISM:
A system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship, forcible suppression of the opposition (unions, other, especially leftists, parties, minority groups, etc.), the retention of private ownership of the means of production under centralized governmental control, belligerent nationalism and racism, glorification of war, etc.: first instituted in Italy in 1922.
2) a) the political philosophy and movement based on such doctrines and policies.
b) fascist behavior. See also Nazism.
--Webster's dictionary.
From: http://remember.org/guide/Facts.root.nazi.html
Nazi Fascism and the Modern Totalitarian State
Synopsis
The government of Nazi Germany was a fascist, totalitarian state. Totalitarian regimes, in contrast to a dictatorship, establish complete political, social, and cultural control over their subjects, and are usually headed by a charismatic leader. Fascism is a form of right-wing totalitarianism which emphasizes the subordination of the individual to advance the interests of the state. Nazi fascism's ideology included a racial theory which denigrated "non-Aryans," extreme nationalism which called for the unification of all German-speaking peoples, the use of private paramilitary organizations to stifle dissent and terrorize opposition, and the centralization of decision-making by, and loyalty to, a single leader.
Fascism
Fascism was an authoritarian political movement that developed in Italy and several other European countries after 1919 as a reaction against the profound political and social changes brought about by World War I and the spread of socialism and Communism. Its name was derived from the fasces, an ancient Roman symbol of authority consisting of a bundle of rods and an ax. Italian fascism was founded in Milan on March 23, 1919, by Benito Mussolini, a former revolutionary socialist leader. His followers, mostly war veterans, were organized along paramilitary lines and wore black shirts as uniforms. The early Fascist program was a mixture of left- and right-wing ideas that emphasized intense Nationalism, productivism, anti-socialism, elitism, and the need for a strong leader. Mussolini's oratorical skills, the post-war economic crisis, a widespread lack of confidence in the traditional political system, and a growing fear of socialism, all helped the Fascist party to grow to 300,000 registered members by 1921. In that year it elected 35 members to parliament.
Nazism
Nazism refers to the totalitarian Fascist ideology and policies espoused and practiced by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Worker's Party from 1920-1945. Nazism stressed the superiority of the Aryan, its destiny as the Master Race to rule the world over other races, and a violent hatred of Jews, which it blamed for all of the problems of Germany. Nazism also provided for extreme nationalism which called for the unification of all German-speaking peoples into a single empire. The economy envisioned for the state was a form of corporative state socialism, although members of the party who were leftists (and would generally support such an economic system over private enterprise) were purged from the party in 1934.
"The organ recipients are from the US, England, France, Germany, India, Australia, Belgium, Italy, Japan.....need I go on ??????"
Good point...MUD
Now we're into semantics....after eight years of Latin I certainly know what fasces were and how they were used...fasces then is a symbol of power...a fascist dictatorship is one which rules by force...in 1984 (the book) the totally socialist regime ruled by force therefore was a fascist socialist dictatorship...Hitler was a fascist socialist dictator...my problem with the word fascist whether it be Franco, Mussolini, Red China, Iraq or whatever is that this word is misconstrued to mean right-wing....which it is not...a fascist despot arises only AFTER power has been seized and wielded to dominate the society...the philosophy leading up to this display of raw and unchecked power (fascism) can be conservative, liberal or libertarian.....my only contention is that creeping fascism is now and has been throughout this past century accomplished more frequently by "liberals" espousing 'coins to the crowd' or 'supping at the public trough' or a 're-distribution of 'their wealth' ' . So when the popular press labels as fascist anyone who does not buy their brand of leftist-socialist thought, then I cringe. Then I always remind my friends, "Never forget, Hitler came to power as a Liberal." as did Bismarck by the way....the point is that conservatives are not fascists although frequently branded as such ...quite the contrary, the sogenannt 'liberals' are more frequently the despots wielding unbridled and unchecked power which the fasces, sic fascist, represents.
Can you help find the film documentary on Chinese executions for organs that ran on TV last year or the year before ??? I do not remember whether it was a network, or PBS ( doubtful) or where but it was not an exotic channel...just basic Adelphia stuff and it actually showed the military tents set up where all took place and an actual execution....supposedly from an American journalist with hidden cameras pretending to need a transplant and his network providing the considerable front money.
Where is the evidence to support "Kill for organs"?
Why are so many people waiting in line to get these organs from prisoners if there are no such organs? Evidently people who are on these waiting lists do get the organs they want. Where do those organs come from?
Thanks for the bump! And ignore the ChiCom apologist disruptors. They have a fine expression in Chinese for such: "gou tuizi" DOG'S LEG.
Oh yes, the so-called "liberals" are more frequently the despots wielding unbridled and unchecked power which the fasces, sic fascist, represents.
No question about that.
As time permits I'll try to help you find the film documentary on Chinese executions for organs.
Thanks for the flag IW.
Diflo, for his part, says he came forward not to seek attention for himself but in hopes of kicking off public discussion and scrutiny of the issue. "I don't see myself going on a world speaking tour," he says. "The whole reason I spoke up about this is that I was having a difficult time taking care of these patients because of my own repugnance at what had gone on and how things had happened. It really comes from a more personal place. It comes from my own outrage."
The picture you posted in #2 says it all. Sickening.
Let's not forget that our own ghouls in the abortion mills also traffic in the organs of aborted babies.
perhaps he knows that the Chinese army operates these hospitals and profits from this program because it's true and he's learned it elsewhere. But I think Ironword was wrong on that post, I think the article did say that the Chinese Army operates these hospitals. Either way, only an idiot would assert that the chinese government isn't doing this systematically for profit. It is just a detail as to whether it is PLA or some other part of Chinese regime. China is communist and totalitarian. Nothing happens without the government.
It is just like nazi germany in the 1930's. In nazi germany in the 1930's they asked families to bring handicapped children to the doctor so the doctor could administer a fatal injection. Parents complied. All kinds of terrible things are done by such regimes, the people must go along or else face potential death themselves. That is obviously the situation in China today.
The Chinese regime has killed 25% of the people of Tibet since 1950. The Chinese regime killed 50 million of its' own people between 1949 and 1969. Since 1980 an additional 50 million+ people have been outright killed after birth due to the population control program. Today millions of chinese work as virtual slaves both in the Laogai and out of the laogai. Children are taken from their parents against the will of the parents and the child both and forced to work in factories 12 hours a day 6-7 days a week. Millions of people are promised wages by state-owned factories and then never paid.
The Chinese regime has threatened more violence against the people of Taiwan. The people of Taiwan may be ethnic Chinese, but Taiwan is not ruled by China and has only been ruled by China for 7 of the last 1,000 years. The people of Taiwan don't want to be ruled by Beijing. By the will and grace of god they will not be.
The conflict that is developing between China and America is not due to animosity to the Chinese. It is the Chinese regime that is unacceptable.
Ironword, thanks for the excellent job formatting this entire very long story and showing us the picture as well. Your html skills exceed mine.
I think the article does say that the PLA controls most of these hospitals.
I read 3 years ago on WorldNetDaily.com that US intelligence leaked info saying that the Chinese regime killed 5,000 people per year in order to get the organs. The American news media would rather sniff at a nothing story surrounding Bob Kerrey instead of this story, it speaks volumes about their world-view.
An acquaintance is a missionary in Brazil. He says that when children or anyone stays overnight at the hospital they must be accompanied, have a person in the room all night long. The reason is because unless somebody is there, then the hospital will likely take the eyes out of the person, so that they can be sold to somebody else. People literally wake up with no eyes.
Video of Chinese Donors being Executed
About a 4 minute download over the phone lines.
Thanks...
"that while he was on death row a guard confided that often organ removal is the means of execution in and of itself. "
Wei has never been sentenced to DEATH in China. As I know, the first sentenced was 15 years in prison in 1979.
"Where do those organs come from? "
Please don't get distracted from the point. Are there any organs removed from those who are executed? I think there are. Are there any organs removed against the will of the executed or their relatives? I think there are.
My question is: Are those people executed solely for their organs, which means they would not be executed if their organs were not marketable? Give me evidence to prove your speculation of "Kill for organ".
"The Chinese regime has killed 25% of the people of Tibet since 1950. The Chinese regime killed 50 million of its' own people between 1949 and 1969. Since 1980 an additional 50 million+ people have been outright killed after birth due to the population control program. "
I don't know where those figure come from. In a Taiwanese forum, a guy told me 30 million Tibetans were killed. I asked him what the population of Tibet was and he didn't know.
"has only been ruled by China for 7 of the last 1,000 years. "
7? Give me the time period when Taiwan WAS ruled by China.
I understand that during the years approximately 1888 to 1894 Taiwan was officially ruled by China due to the fact that Beijing wanted to counter the Japanese expansion.
Chinese for hundreds of years have streamed out of China to other places. This does not mean that those other places must pay tribute to Beijing. One of the places that Chinese have migrated to is Taiwan, so many in fact that Taiwan is now populated by people who are mostly ethnic Chinese, but they have arrived over the last 500 years, most of them not recently at all.
The figures I quoted about the Beijing government killing people are the history in the matter. You should learn it. Lots of nations at one time or another went mad and did these types of things. For example, the Japanese in Shanghai and other Chinese cities in 1939? I believe killed many millions. About 800 years ago in England hundreds of thousands were killed because they were the wrong ethnic group. Throughout history these types of things have happened in many nations. In America there have been times when it was official policy to simply kill groups of people. On at least 4-5 occasions the US army destroyed villages of Indians, killing everyone, even though they were not hostile at all. In California there was a rampage once against Chinese to kill all Chinese, in one town over a hundred were killed all at once. In Missouri/Illinois whole towns of people following Mormon religion were slaughtered. I am certainly not trying to claim that the Chinese nation is somehow worse than other nations because these things have happened. I am merely of the view that the communist regime of Beijing is the enemy of freedom. Freedom is America's friend, it is something that our nation even stands for beyond an ethnicity unlike other nations believe it or not, America and China are destined to clash if China goes after Taiwan.
Regarding the Cultural Revolution when these terrible things happened in China, the communists upon taking over immediately killed a lot of the educated people and the successful business class. Then they would have their public meetings where they gathered people together, then ranted and raved, then accused some individuals, then killed those individuals. They expected citizens to join in and help accuse or provide evidence against those targeted. If you didn't join in, then you would likely be accused yourself and then killed of course. This is how they got ordinary people to actually beat to death their own neighbors in public for no other reason than because they didn't want to be accused themselves.
There are people who witnessed these events and wrote about them. Sorry, I don't have any source off the top of my head though.
I also rail against western prostitutes like Rupert Murdoch who mimics the Chinese regime's line against the falun gong. The falun gong merely meditate in public, yet Rupert Murdoch says they should be arrested for this.
Only with the will and grace of god will China and the US truly be friends someday and only after the current regime is destroyed.
My question is: Are those people executed solely for their organs, which means they would not be executed if their organs were not marketable? Give me evidence to prove your speculation of "Kill for organ".
Somebody is making a lot of money off the sale of organs. Where is all that money going? Who is getting paid for this? Doesn't that provide an incentive to kill more people? Is the PLA in charge of the prisons? Where is the accountability? If those in charge of prisons in this country were allowed to sell the organs of inmates, I would also be concerned about abuses like this.
"There are people who witnessed these events and wrote about them. Sorry, I don't have any source off the top of my head though."
You dont have to give any source about the Cultural Revolution becuase I experiencecd it in person. IMHO the biggest lesson the Chinese people have to learn from the Cultural Revolution is not what almost all Chinese families ,including mine, had sufferred but the fact that the majority of the people actually SUPPORTED the Cultural Revolution when it started. This was the similar situation to the Nazi movement in Germany in 1930's. Did Germans elect Hitler? Yes they did. Did German support Hitler? Yes, most of them did. Did Germans know the Jews were being killed? Yes, many of them did. To prevent the Cultural Revolution from happening again, the Chinese should learn the lesson that Germans have learned from their support to the Nazi. Mao is definetly to blame for the Cultural rvolution. Who else? None of the average Chinese is to blame? I just dont think so.
"I also rail against western prostitutes like Rupert Murdoch who mimics the Chinese regime's line against the falun gong. The falun gong merely meditate in public, yet Rupert Murdoch says they should be arrested for this."
Well, FLG is a different issue. I personally don't think the government should pay that much attention to those FLG people.
"Where is all that money going?" "Who is getting paid for this?"
Whoever is involved in the business.
"Doesn't that provide an incentive to kill more people?"
Yes, it does. But you cant use speculations to make a case. You need evidence.
"Is the PLA in charge of the prisons?"
No, the Armed Police is in charge.
"Where is the accountability?"
Well, it's getting vague. The government may have some internal policies governing it. You may have to ask the relevant government agencies. But if you are a foreigner, I dont think they will disclose them to you.
"If those in charge of prisons in this country were allowed to sell the organs of inmates, I would also be concerned about abuses like this."
It's reasonable DOUBT. But don't forget the sentences come from the court, not the prison.
My photo links directly to the VV site -- notice the photo has been cropped since yesterday (re: your "red-colored hands" comment)?
I think the article does say that the PLA controls most of these hospitals.
Yes, you're right:
"Most—perhaps 70 percent—of the hospitals performing the procedures are run by the military, which has the best connections to the penal system and can be present at executions, she explains."
Re the formatting, it is actually theirs, I only edited out any unessential code.
Thanks for the comments and observations.
Someone who remembers the film documentary more vividly reply to me privately and via post and lets see if we can resurrect this thing.
I don't know of it . . . anybody else?
That's some link, thanks.
IMHO the biggest lesson the Chinese people have to learn from the Cultural Revolution is not what almost all Chinese families ,including mine, had sufferred but the fact that the majority of the people actually SUPPORTED the Cultural Revolution when it started.
Well, we agree on something . . . the Cultural Revolution was supported initially by many Chinese people -- but then it got exceedingly ugly, which is, of course, very sad.
Thanks once again for links.
Extremely interesting.
The association with Pilate was just too much to bear, I guess.So much for the (visual) reminder that I as much as anyone could share responsibility for what continues to happen elsewhere every day.Let us still do whatever we can.
Almost forgot ya.
Thanks for the heads-up. I thot I had material on this issue in my files, but I find nothing... 'til now.
89 Posted on 11/30/2001 23:20:02 PST by Zadokite
90 Posted on 12/01/2001 10:34:00 PST by BERZERKER
91 Posted on 01/05/2002 14:08:15 PST by 2sheep
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