New Evidence in Kilgour-Matas Report on Organ Harvesting

Ottawa- David Matas and David Kilgour called on all states to ban transplant tourism to China. The call was made in the context of a revised version of a report which addresses the allegation whether organs are harvested from Falun Gong practitioners who were killed in the process. The initial report was released July 6, 2006. The reports conclude that it is true. The revised report almost doubles the amount of evidence that the practice is continuing.

New evidence in the revised report reinforcing the original conclusions includes:

• the donor recipient experience that transplant operations are done in a secretive way suggesting cover up of a crime;

• heavy military involvement in the organ transplant business;

• additional admissions from the hospitals that they have Falun Gong organs for transplant. The admissions were made to telephone investigators posing as relatives of patients in need of transplants ;

• additional testimony from Falun Gong victim witnesses about both systematic blood testing of only Falun Gong practitioners in Chinese detention and the disappearance of the massive numbers of Falun Gong practitioners in detention who refused to self identity to the authorities;

• death through torture of over three thousand named Falun Gong practitioners;

• the building of dedicated facilities for organ transplants without any identifiable source for transplants other than prisoners;

• corroborating studies from other independent researchers coming to the same conclusion as the Matas/Kilgour report.

• the failure to implement the law in force July 1, 2006 prohibiting the harvesting of organs without consent;

• the failure of foreign laws and ethics to provide an effective barrier to transplant tourism to China;

• the absence of effective foreign warning transplant sources in China through travel advisories and other information programs;

• the absence of any meaningful answer or contradiction from the Government of China to the first version of the report;

• the absence of an organ donation system in China;

The report recommendations include:

• extra-territorial legislation preventing patients from going abroad for transplants where neither the donor nor his family consent;

• end of funding for after care for patients who benefit from commercial organ transplants abroad;

• ceasing contact with Chinese transplant professionals;

• warning through government travel advisories and public information campaigns that the source of organ transplants in China with few exceptions is prisoners.

"Our investigations have found Canadians going to China for transplants from Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto. The numbers are increasing”, said Kilgour.

“The market for organs in China is determined by supply and demand. The supply is local, but the demand is, in large part, foreign. We must do everything we can to end this demand”, said Matas.

For further information, contact David Kilgour at 613-747-7854,

David Matas at 204-944-1831

The revised report can be obtained at: http://www.organharvestinvestigation.net/