China's Grim Harvest

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China's President isn't used to being heckled. But last Thursday, as Hu Jintao addressed reporters at the White House during his U.S. visit, a woman from a newspaper run by the meditation sect Falun Gong loudly interrupted him, calling him a "murderer" and threatening that his days were numbered. Among other allegations, Falun Gong, which is banned in China, accuses Chinese hospitals of harvesting organs from executed prisoners — including some of the sect's own members — and selling them for transplants.

But Falun Gong activists aren't the only ones concerned about China's organ trade. A day before Hu's interrupted White House speech, the British Transplantation Society, a group of 800 surgeons, issued a statement criticizing the use of death-row prisoners' organs in transplants — because it cannot verify China's claim that it only procures organs from prisoners who have given consent. "I don't believe anybody in a prison would be sitting around having voluntary consent discussions," says bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania.

For its part, China's Ministry of Health maintains that Chinese hospitals perform "very few" transplants using executed inmates' organs. But Bek-Medical, a broker based in Japan that advertises "fast, cheap and safe" transplants for foreigners who are willing to travel to China, says it arranges 30 to 50 operations a year. The source of the kidneys and livers? "Executed prisoners," a Bek-Medical staffer told TIME. But that may soon change. In July, China is scheduled to implement new regulations banning organ sales and requiring written consent from donors or their relatives. If Beijing sticks to its new rules, organ brokers may have to look elsewhere for business opportunities.