China's first set of regulations on human organ transplant,
which prohibits organizations and individuals from trading human
organs in any form, went into effect on Tuesday.
Any doctor found to be involved in human organ trade will have
their practitioner license revoked, according to the regulations
issued by the State Council, China's cabinet.
Clinics will be suspended from doing organ transplant operations
for at least three years. Fines are set at between eight to ten
times the value of the outlawed trade, the regulations say.
Officials convicted of trading in human organs will be sacked
and kicked out of the government.
China has carried out organ transplants for more than 20 years
and is the world's second largest performer of transplants after
the United States, with about 5,000 transplants operated each
year.
Most organs are donated by ordinary Chinese at death after the
voluntary signing of a donation agreement.
But the country faces a huge gap between the demand for
functional organs and the supply of donations. About 1.5 million
patients need organ transplants each year, but only 10,000 can find
organs, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health.
The regulations stipulate that human organ transplants should
respect the principle of free will. And it is made a crime to
harvest organs without the owner's permission or will.
Human organ transplants are defined as the process of taking a
human organ or part of a human organ -- such as the heart, lung,
liver, kidney and pancreas -- from a donor and transplanting it
into a patient's body to replace their sick or damaged organ.
The regulations do not apply to transplants of human tissue,
such as cells, cornea and marrow.
The set of regulations comprises 32 articles in five chapters,
including human organ donations, human organ transplants, legal
responsibilities and supplementary points.
The regulations clarify strict supervision and control for the
few medical institutions that are allowed to perform organ
transplants, and set rules to standardize procedures so as to
prevent potential human rights abuses.
According to the regulations, every transplant must be approved
by an ethics committee set up in the the medical institution. A
designated mechanism will ensure that medical institutions are
competent. Unqualified institutions will be ordered to exit the
market.
Along with the regulations on organ transplant, a new set of
regulations to promote employment opportunities for China's 83
million handicapped people also took effect on Tuesday.
The regulations issued in February by the State Council require
that handicapped people make up no less than 1.5 percent of the
work force of government departments, enterprises and
institutions.
Handicapped employees must be given equal promotion
opportunities and equal salaries and social insurance.
Statistics show that China has 82.96 million handicapped people
but only 22.66 million are employed. The number of handicapped
people increases by 300,000 a year.
Government departments, institutions and enterprises that employ
more handicapped people will enjoy preferential taxation and other
policies, said the regulations.
Self-employed handicapped will enjoy preferential treatment in
taxation and other management and registration charges. They can
also get small loans when starting their own businesses, according
to the regulations.
Also on Tuesday, a series of ministry regulations went into
effect, covering food safety, supply of drinkable water and
advertisement of new drugs.
(Xinhua News Agency May 2, 2007)