Michael Green   Manuel Vargas   phone, office information Additional information on moral philosophy Additional Reading on Abortion Additional Reading on Euthanasia Additional Reading on Rationing Rationing Criteria for rationing organs Viagra in France		Medical Ethics: Prisoners' organs for sale "F.B.I. Arrests 2 Chinese for Selling Organs of Executed Prisoners" New York Times, February 24, 1998 By CHRISTOPHER DREW EW YORK -- In an undercover operation that officials say could confirm suspicions about human rights abuses in China's prisons, federal authorities in New York have arrested two men, including one who identified himself as a former Chinese prosecutor, on charges of conspiring to arrange transplants of kidneys and other organs taken from the bodies of executed Chinese inmates. Federal officials said Monday that the case could provide the first evidence documented by the American government of what Chinese dissidents have long described as a thriving -- and largely illicit -- trade stemming from the harsh treatment of prisoners there. The two men, Cheng Yong Wang, who described himself as a former prosecutor in Hainan Island, China, and Xingqi Fu, a Chinese citizen who lives in Flushing, N.Y., were arrested last Friday after an FBI agent posing as a medical executive met with them in New York. During the meeting, Wang offered to sell kidneys from prisoners who had been executed in China and arrange for American patients to have the transplant operations in China , according to a federal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Wang told the undercover agent that working with Fu he also could supply eye corneas, at $5,000 a pair, to doctors who wanted to transplant them in the United States and that he could obtain pancreases, livers, lungs and skin, the complaint said. The FBI mounted the sting operation shortly after receiving a tip from a well-known human rights activist, Harry Wu, who said in an interview that he secretly videotaped a meeting with Wang on Feb. 13 in which Wang made a similar offer. In addition, Wu added that Wang also said he could guarantee access to the organs of at least 50 of the 200 prisoners executed on China's Hainan Island each year. Wu said Wang told him that the the kidney transplants would cost $20,000 to $30,000 at Chinese hospitals -- an amount significantly less than they would cost in many American hospitals. The State Department said in a recent report that there have been credible allegations from human-rights groups and former Chinese inmates that the organs of some executed prisoners have been removed and sold. Wu, who spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps for criticizing its leadership and is now an American citizen, has been urging the Clinton administration for several years to put pressure on China's government to halt the practice. Despite a scattering of press reports suggesting that people from other Asian countries have eagerly sought such transplants, the Chinese government has long denied that the practice is widespread. Chinese officials contend that the transplants occur on a limited basis, and only when the prisoners or their families have given their consent. But Wu said that Wang disputed this in one of their conversations, saying that prisoners generally "have no political rights, so we don't ask." A State Department spokesman said Monday that "we're naturally concerned about these allegations, and we're looking into it." Stanley O. Roth, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said in a letter to Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., last year that if it were true that Chinese prisoners were being killed to sell their body parts, "this would be among the grossest violations of human rights imaginable." Wu and other rights activists, including the London-based organization Amnesty International, also have expressed concern that as the number of executions rises in China, to an estimated 6,000 a year, even people convicted of crimes like robbery and counterfeiting are being sentenced to the death, and this could help expand the trade in body parts. The press office at China's embassy in Washington did not return a call for comment Monday. Wang and Fu were charged with conspiring to sell human organs -- a practice that is illegal under federal law, which requires that any organs used in transplants be donated for free. The federal complaint did not say whether Wang had arranged any sales or transplants, and law enforcement officials would not discuss that or whether they had verified that Wang had been a Chinese official. Initial court records offered few details about the two defendants, who were arrested Friday and taken on Saturday before a federal magistrate judge in Manhattan. The magistrate ordered both men held without bond until further proceedings this week. During a hearing Monday, Marcia R. Isaacson, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Fu and his wife were Chinese citizens. Fu was said to earn about $600 a month from a laundry he operates in Queens. After the hearing, the magistrate, Ronald L. Ellis, ordered Fu released on $100,000 bond. Fu's lawyer, David B. Levitt, declined to comment. But Fu's wife, Susan, said, "They wronged him. He never did any illegal thing." Wang's lawyer, Oliver A. Smith, declined to comment other than to say that "we act on the assumption that the Constitution still works and he's presumed innocent." Wang, who is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday for a bail hearing, listed himself in a court financial disclosure form as unemployed and said that he had about $3,000 in savings. Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company This page was originally posted on 5/28/98; 10:18:22 AM and was last built on 5/28/98; 10:18:25 AM with BBEdit and Frontier 5 on a Macintosh running System 8.0.