(Clearwisdom.net) The modern organ allograft transplant originated in the former Soviet Union. In 1936, Dr. U. Voronoy transplanted a human kidney from a dead body into a young patient who had kidney failure as a result of mercury poisoning. The patient died 48 hours later. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adopted this transplant technique from the Soviet Union and utilized its army to perform transplants. Army medical personnel were encouraged to take organs from living beings for better quality. In the beginning of this era, the CCP recruited highly-qualified physicians to join the army and even assigned them to act as personal physicians for the Party's Central Committee members.
CCP Central Health Care System in Favor of Organ Transplant Surgeons
Organ transplants in China began in late 1950. In the beginning, researchers experimented with animals. Then in the 1960s, Dr. Wu Jieping, a urological surgeon, conducted the first human kidney transplant.
Dr. Wu led a "Beijing Volunteer Surgical Team" during the Korean war and received high honors from the CCP in 1951. He joined the CCP in 1956. During the Cultural Revolution, the leading cadres of the CCP Central Committee abolished the "health-care physicians for Party leaders" system and formed a health care team to provide care to all Party leaders. Dr. Wu headed this team. From a medical perspective, it makes little sense that a urological surgeon would take the post of health care chief for high ranking leaders. Such a role would normally be given to a cardiologist or a physician specializing in other chronic diseases common among the elderly. A urological surgeon would normally play a supportive role, providing consultation for diagnosis and treatment of diseases in the urinary and urogenital systems. Dr. Wu was assigned to head the team, not only for his medical knowledge, of course.
Dr. Wu was the attending physician in charge of cancer treatment for Zhou Enlai. In 1971, he examined Mr. Zhou and found cancer cell mutations in his bladder. It was the early stage of bladder cancer. The cure rate is high if the cancer cells are removed in a timely manner. The medical team suggested surgery immediately, and Zhou agreed. Dr. Wu requested permission from Mao Zedong (CCP Chairman from 1949-1976) to do the surgery. (CCP rules stated that any surgery on CCP leaders required Mao's approval.) Dr. Wu received approval--over a year later, far beyond the optimal time to perform the surgery on Mr. Zhou. In his approval, Mao gave instructions that the surgery should follow a two-step procedure. The first step was to perform a thorough re-examination, the second step was to operate. However, when CCP official Ye passed the approval message on to Dr. Wu, he said, "As you know, there is of course, no second step. "
To guarantee compliance with CCP demands, Dr. Wu ignored his own patients' needs and disregarded the most basic medical knowledge. His medical skills were used solely to serve the highest political purpose of the CCP. Dr. Wu carried out the CCP's demands regardless of professional ethics. A highly skilled professional without medical ethics, of course, was valued by the CCP. This was the reason that an organ transplant physician like Wu was successful within the CCP system.
Army Communication Linked to Kidney Transplant
Dr. Li Yan Tang was a urological surgeon who performed a prostate operation for Mr. Deng at Hospital 301 in Beijing. To specialize in urology, Dr. Li followed Dr Xu Dian-B and Dr. Wu, starting in 1959. Dr. Li was involved in the treatment of seven out of 10 marshals, and eight out of ten generals during the mid to late 1970s.
Dr. Li performed his first kidney transplant in October 1977 and the result was a disaster. At that time, no transplant patient in Beijing lived for more than one month. Only one transplant patient, operated on by Dr. Xiong Ru Cheng at Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital, survived for one and a half years. To deal with the problem, they established criteria to shorten the time of kidney ischemia and obtain early resumption of kidney function. Dr. Xiong stated in his article, "To save time, police cleared the path for all vehicles carrying organs, so they were undeterred by traffic on their way to the hospital. We even utilized an army communication system to improve communication between staff transporting kidneys to the hospital and medical staff in the operating room in order to shorten waiting time. The operating room was immediately notified as soon as the kidney was removed and good for engraft, so that it was ready once the kidney arrived. There were no delays at either end." When Dr. Li received the kidney, Dr. Chou would have had the operating room ready. At that time, the person in charge of the army communication system was Ye Xiang-zhen, daughter of the powerful CCP army marshal Ye.
Dr. Li did not reveal the sources of the kidney donations. For a healthy kidney, which could be transplanted with little to no complications (shortened ischemia period), police cars were dispatched and the Department of Transportation was in full cooperation. Military personnel worked on maintaining open communication lines, as this important task could not be entrusted to civilians. It was the "Crown Prince Party" who ordered the army to carry out the mission. The best way to shorten the ischemia period of a removed kidney was to harvest the kidneys from living persons. The CCP withheld information regarding whether the source of the kidneys were from executed prisoners or obtained from living persons.
A surgeon from Hospital 301 in Beijing confirmed in a telephone interview in April 2006 that she did liver transplants herself. The surgeon added that the sources of the organs were a "state secret" and that anyone revealing the sources "could be disqualified from doing such operations."
Central Health Bureau Chief Acts as Major Player in Liver Transplants
Because of his wide array of foreign contacts, Dr. Huang Jiefu, who was an organ transplant specialist, was appointed by the CCP as deputy minister of the health department in 2001. This appointment could best serve its objectives with Dr. Lu at the helm. Dr. Huang was promoted to secretary of the Central Health Bureau in July 2005 to lead a central health care team, which was formed with specialists for the care of Central Committee members. As in Dr. Wu's case, the reason for appointing Dr. Huang, a transplant surgeon, was that he faithfully fulfilled the political needs of the CCP. Dr. Huang relied on support from the CCP, army forces, and the Department of Politics and Law for an ongoing supply of living organs, so he could become an organ transplant expert and better his professional reputation and social standing in the community. The CCP chose Dr. Huang for his aspirations and unethical motivations, and took advantage of his great clinical experience and exquisite surgical techniques. Dr. Huang thus became the backbone of the medical field, efficiently and loyally providing services to the CCP.
Before he became deputy minister of health and a high ranking official of the CCP, Dr. Huang was the chancellor of Zhongshan Medical University in Guangzhou and secretary of the CCP's local branch. He worked as a fellow at the medical school of the University of Sydney, Australia, from 1984-1987. He had been a visiting medical professor at several foreign universities. He organized a liver organ transplant team, whose members included primarily young scholars returning from overseas. The team did 340 clinical liver transplants. He was also the chief editor of China's first liver transplant monograph, and was recognized as a promoter and leader for the second wave of China's liver transplants. Although he insisted that the second liver transplant wave began in 1993, other transplant documents indicated that it started in 1999, which was the year when the persecution of Falun Gong was initiated. As indicated in the book, Liver Transplant, which was published in 2001, liver transplants in China began in 1977, soon reaching its first climax. Starting in 1998 it reached its second climax triggered by the effects of multiple elements. The number of liver transplant cases increased annually. There were 16 cases in 1997, and then the number increased to 27 in 1998. The number of transplant cases then soared to 118 in 1999.
On September 23, 2005, Dr. Huang was a member of a central delegation group formed and led by Luo Gan to attend the 50th anniversary celebration of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Luo Gan was the secretary of the Political and Legislative Affairs Committee of the CCP Central Committee. On September 28, Dr. Huang and Dr. Wen Hao, head of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical School, performed surgery on a 46-year-old liver cancer patient. During the surgery they found that the semi-hepatectomy would not work as originally planned because the cancer had already infiltrated the patient's liver. Dr. Huang suggested an autologous liver transplant proposal. The method included removal of the patient's whole liver to excise cancer tissue and then an engraft of the clean part of the liver, which would be placed back into the patient. One matched liver from a donor was needed for allogenic transplant if the autologous transplant failed. After discussions, Dr. Huang and the hospital immediately contacted the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Zhongshan Medical University and Chongqing Medical University No. 3 Hospital of Southwest Liver Center for the liver. A matched liver from Chongging arrived at 6:30 p.m. the very next day, and three medical personnel from Guanzhou-Zhonghan Hospital also rushed to Xinjiang with surgical equipment and another liver.
The duration of cold ischemia of a donor liver stored in a special solution generally cannot exceed 15 hours, the maximum time needed to ensure the quality of an allograft. Considering the time needed to obtain a donor liver and transport the liver to the transplant facility, plus the several hours needed for the autologous operation, the only way to ensure a successful allogeneic transplant if autologous transplant failed, would be to kill a living person. It is noteworthy that the No. 3 Hospital of Southeast Liver Center of Chongging is a military medical school. It is directly managed by the CCP Liberation Army. Two matched livers were delivered within 24 hours after Dr. Huang made one phone call. This broke a world's record in the medical field. This implies that Dr. Huang has command over the military health care system. It would be impossible for Dr. Huang to achieve such high efficiency without Luo's political influences and cooperation from military hospitals and the entire military system.
Conclusion
The organ transplant industry began to grow when the CCP gained political power, and a unique organ transplant system in the CCP was created. Transplant surgeons provide health care to Party leaders to obtain privileges and take advantage of the army system and the state's equipment. On the other hand, the CCP uses these surgeons to train and promote organ transplants. In 1999, when the CCP started persecuting Falun Gong, its organ transplant system, which had been prepared and developed for decades, used Falun Gong practitioners as the primary source of organs. Organ harvesting has become a special force to persecute Falun Gong. As China's domestic economy began to prosper, organ transplants from living people developed from sporadic cases into a large-scale industry. The direct result was a soaring number of organ transplants in China between 1999 and 2006.