UK Lawmaker Seeks Disclosure of Medical Research Ties With China Amid Organ Harvesting Concerns
Lord Alton’s request came as American lawmakers called for the State Department’s rewards programs to be used to help end CCP’s forced organ harvesting.A UK lawmaker wants the government to disclose if any government-funded universities in Britain are collaborating with Chinese peers on organ transplant research, in the latest efforts to combat Beijing’s forced organ harvesting.The formal request from Lord David Alton of Liverpool, tabled on May 9, came less than a week after a group of U.S. lawmakers urged the Biden administration to seek firsthand evidence to help hold those responsible for Beijing’s forced organ harvesting accountable.Citing that letter on social media platform X, Mr. Alton said he had requested details of medical research conducted by British universities that received funds from the government in collaboration with their Chinese counterparts. Specifically, he wanted to know whether any of the research related to organ transplants.Evidence has mounted since The Epoch Times first broke the news in the early 2000s revealing that the Chinese regime was forcibly harvesting the organs from detained prisoners of conscience.That allegation was confirmed in 2019 when a London-based independent tribunal, after a year-long investigation, concluded that forced organ harvesting had taken place in China for years “on a significant scale.”The main victims, the tribunal found, are imprisoned practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditative discipline that has been subjected to sweeping persecution campaigns by the regime since 1999.Related StoriesIts final judgment, released in March 2020 and including 300 pages of witness testimony and submissions, found “no evidence of the practice having been stopped.”The group of U.S. lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month, demanding the Biden administration prioritize the disruption of the forced organ harvesting by seeking first-hand evidence through the State Department’s rewards programs.“Forced organ harvesting is an atrocity and the disruption and deterrence of this practice should be a priority of the State Department,” the group, including U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), wrote in the letter.“Getting the PRC to account and fully address evidence of forced organ harvesting will be critical in ending this horrific practice and promoting, long term, the establishment of a truly voluntary organ donation system,” the lawmakers wrote, using the acronym of China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.Their request came amid growing efforts by lawmakers in Washington, Brussels, and other countries to prevent their residents from engaging in “organ tourism” to China, and thus becoming complicit in the crime.With the state-sanctioned practice of forced organ harvesting, Chinese hospitals could offer matched organs as quickly as a few days—something unheard of in any country relying on a voluntary donation system—attracting foreign patients traveling to China for life-saving operations.In the United States, three states have enacted laws to make sure residents are not unknowingly complicit in the regime’s transplant abuse. Arizona lawmakers are pushing for passage of a similar legislation to combat the practice.The bipartisan Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, which seeks to punish enablers of the abuse, passed overwhelmingly in the House in March 2023.Around 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners marched in the World Falun Dafa parade in New York City, on May 13, 2016. (Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times)The European Parliament passed a resolution in 2022 condemning the “persistent, systematic, inhumane” forced organ harvesting in China. A separate resolution, passed in January, called on the European Union and its member states to “publicly condemn organ transplant abuses in China” while demanding Beijing ends the brutal persecutory campaign against Falun Gong immediately.In Britain, the House of Commons also adopted an amendment to its bioethics law in 2022, which aimed to stop British patients waiting for organs from going to China for transplants.Concern over Beijing’s forced organ harvesting has promoted the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation to stop accepting organ transplantation research from China.A group of medical professionals and advocates, led by British kidney transplant surgeon Dr. Adnan Sharif, has called on global transplantation societies to follow the led by the transplantation association.“While [the] international exchange of knowledge, skills and expertise has been a valued hallmark of organ donation and transplantation, collaboration with a transplant program stained with credible evidence of unethical transplant practice that [amounts] to crimes against humanity in relation to organ donor sources,” they wrote in an article published in The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation in 2022.Eva Fu contributed to this report.
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Lord Alton’s request came as American lawmakers called for the State Department’s rewards programs to be used to help end CCP’s forced organ harvesting.
A UK lawmaker wants the government to disclose if any government-funded universities in Britain are collaborating with Chinese peers on organ transplant research, in the latest efforts to combat Beijing’s forced organ harvesting.
The formal request from Lord David Alton of Liverpool, tabled on May 9, came less than a week after a group of U.S. lawmakers urged the Biden administration to seek firsthand evidence to help hold those responsible for Beijing’s forced organ harvesting accountable.
Citing that letter on social media platform X, Mr. Alton said he had requested details of medical research conducted by British universities that received funds from the government in collaboration with their Chinese counterparts. Specifically, he wanted to know whether any of the research related to organ transplants.
Evidence has mounted since The Epoch Times first broke the news in the early 2000s revealing that the Chinese regime was forcibly harvesting the organs from detained prisoners of conscience.
That allegation was confirmed in 2019 when a London-based independent tribunal, after a year-long investigation, concluded that forced organ harvesting had taken place in China for years “on a significant scale.”
The main victims, the tribunal found, are imprisoned practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditative discipline that has been subjected to sweeping persecution campaigns by the regime since 1999.
Its final judgment, released in March 2020 and including 300 pages of witness testimony and submissions, found “no evidence of the practice having been stopped.”
The group of U.S. lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month, demanding the Biden administration prioritize the disruption of the forced organ harvesting by seeking first-hand evidence through the State Department’s rewards programs.
“Forced organ harvesting is an atrocity and the disruption and deterrence of this practice should be a priority of the State Department,” the group, including U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), wrote in the letter.
“Getting the PRC to account and fully address evidence of forced organ harvesting will be critical in ending this horrific practice and promoting, long term, the establishment of a truly voluntary organ donation system,” the lawmakers wrote, using the acronym of China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.
Their request came amid growing efforts by lawmakers in Washington, Brussels, and other countries to prevent their residents from engaging in “organ tourism” to China, and thus becoming complicit in the crime.
With the state-sanctioned practice of forced organ harvesting, Chinese hospitals could offer matched organs as quickly as a few days—something unheard of in any country relying on a voluntary donation system—attracting foreign patients traveling to China for life-saving operations.
In the United States, three states have enacted laws to make sure residents are not unknowingly complicit in the regime’s transplant abuse. Arizona lawmakers are pushing for passage of a similar legislation to combat the practice.
The bipartisan Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, which seeks to punish enablers of the abuse, passed overwhelmingly in the House in March 2023.
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The European Parliament passed a resolution in 2022 condemning the “persistent, systematic, inhumane” forced organ harvesting in China. A separate resolution, passed in January, called on the European Union and its member states to “publicly condemn organ transplant abuses in China” while demanding Beijing ends the brutal persecutory campaign against Falun Gong immediately.
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In Britain, the House of Commons also adopted an amendment to its bioethics law in 2022, which aimed to stop British patients waiting for organs from going to China for transplants.
.
Concern over Beijing’s forced organ harvesting has promoted the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation to stop accepting organ transplantation research from China.
.
A group of medical professionals and advocates, led by British kidney transplant surgeon Dr. Adnan Sharif, has called on global transplantation societies to follow the led by the transplantation association.
“While [the] international exchange of knowledge, skills and expertise has been a valued hallmark of organ donation and transplantation, collaboration with a transplant program stained with credible evidence of unethical transplant practice that [amounts] to crimes against humanity in relation to organ donor sources,” they wrote in an article published in The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation in 2022.
Eva Fu contributed to this report.
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