Ethics Newsline®

BEIJING
Apparently bowing to international outrage over the ethics of so-called transplant tourism — where wealthy foreigners visit developing nations in order to receive organs that may have been purchased from impoverished locals or taken from executed prisoners — China last week announced new regulations cracking down on the process.

Reuters reports that the new rules promise to pull the licenses of medical professionals involved in transplant tourism.

A dispatch from the official Chinese government news agency Xinhua also notes that hospital ethics committees will be required to review and approve every transplant operation that is conducted.

The prohibitions are limited to the selling of organs. Sales of tissues, such as marrow, corneas, and cells, are still permitted, according to the Jurist, a publication of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Transplant tourism was the focus of a meeting of international experts last week sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations agency. WHO official Luc Noel told the CBC that the organization believes that 5 percent to 10 percent of all kidneys transplanted in 2005 were from the illicit market.

In its report, Reuters notes that much of the black market growth is due to a shortage of organs in the legitimate donation system, a shortage partly due to increasing rates of kidney failure in wealthy countries where obesity and high blood pressure are common.