The Epoch Times

By Matthew Robertson
Epoch Times Staff

Judging from the outside there is nothing problematic about the Tongji Hospital in Wuhan. In fact, it’s one of China’s most prestigious medical schools. But in 2006, when asked whether the hospital could perform live organ transplantation from Falun Gong prisoners, a staff member in the Kidney Transplant Department said: “Sure, it’s no problem.”

“When you are ready, you can come over directly and we will discuss it in detail,” the voice continued. The call was one of several placed to hospitals around China in March 2006 by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) in an investigation of allegations of forced, live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners.

But the evidence this call provides of the Wuhan Tongji Hospital’s involvement in live organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, and the role a senior surgeon at the hospital might have in those operations, are not items that prominent members of the international transplantation community like to discuss.

The Chen Problem

Dr. Chen Zhonghua, a senior Chinese transplantation surgeon, was director of the Institute of Organ Transplantations at Tongji Hospital when the call was made. He is currently professor of surgery at the same institute.

Chen recently attended and co-authored a paper for The Transplantation Society’s (TTS) Congress, held in Berlin. TTS is the largest society of transplant professionals and exercises “global leadership” over the field; its biennial congresses are attended by thousands.

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As well as co-authoring a paper, Chen sat on the board of the Scientific Program Committee for the Congress.

He is also the councilor for Asia 2013 of the International Society for Organ Donation and Procurement, which is a section of TTS.

Chen has played these roles with TTS even though the allegations that he has been involved in forced, live organ harvesting are on public record.

The transcript of the incriminating phone call to Tongji Hospital, whose organ transplantation department Chen led at the time, is published on WOIPFG’s website and is cited as part of a seminal report on the harvesting of organs from practitioners of Falun Gong titled “Bloody Harvest” co-authored by Canadians David Matas, an international human rights lawyer, and David Kilgour, a former crown prosecutor and parliamentarian.

In addition, a criminal complaint was filed against Chen with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston in July 2006 when Chen was in the city to attend the World Transplantation Congress. The complaint accuses Chen of “participating in a forced organ removal program” that targeted Falun Gong.

The TTS’s official position to the use of organs from executed prisoners, as articulated in an email by Dr. Francis Delmonico, the Society’s president-elect, is “unambiguous opposition.”

The TTS resident ethicist produced a question and answer specifically on the China question, and the society has taken some measures to make sure its conferences are not platforms for discussing the latest advancements in removing the organs of just-executed prisoners.

But advocates and researchers say that, particularly on the question of Chen Zhonghua, TTS has not done enough.

“Chen is not an ordinary transplant surgeon. He is a high-level official in the unethical Chinese transplant system,” wrote Arne Schwarz, a Swiss-based researcher of ethics in organ transplant practices, in an email.

Chen was the director of a transplant unit that racked up 4,000 transplants “mostly using prisoner organs,” according to Schwarz.

Chen was the director of a transplant unit that racked up 4,000 transplants “mostly using prisoner organs,” according to Schwarz.

Schwarz says that by allowing “such a compromised person” to hold the positions he does, “this is compromising TTS as a society concerned with transplant ethics.” Chen should be dismissed, Schwarz said.

According to TTS’s own rules for membership, that is to say, “Members of The Transplantation Society must not be involved in obtaining or transplanting organs from executed prisoners or other donors where there is a risk that an autonomous consent for donation is lacking,” Chen should be disqualified, according to Schwarz.

When The Epoch Times contacted TTS officials to ask about the apparent contradiction between the society’s stated policies and Chen’s holding of two official posts with TTS, TTS officials did not answer directly.

Dr. Gerhard Opelz, a member of the Executive Organizing Committee for the Berlin Congress and president of TTS, referred questions about Chen to Delmonico. Delmonico then referred the questions about Chen back to Opelz. In response to a second request for comment on July 30, Opelz responded by saying simply that he would be “on vacation until August 20.”

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