A recent report revealed that China has kept a dark medical secret from the rest of the world. It was found that those who had kidney transplants in the country were receiving organs from executed prisoners. Their extractions were without consent and were said to be a response to a shortage of organ supply. It was also revealed that illegal organ trafficking is quite rampant in the country.

A report published in the SocArXiv last January 31, 2019 revealed a forensic analysis of data about organ donation in China in the years 2010 and 2018. The results showed that there were numerous falsification and manipulation of datasets purporting to official organ transplants.

Senior Research Analyst for East Asia at Freedom House Sarah Cook said that the Chinese governments have claimed to conduct around 10,000 organ transplants per year. She then raised that the numbers did not add up as the hospital’s bed capacities and the number of resources required to conduct transplants in the country were insufficient. There were only 200 hospitals that conducted these procedures, she told IFL Science.

The investigation was inspired by the occurrence of whistleblowers who claimed that China does not follow organ transplant protocols for the last two decades. According to Wang Guoqi who was one of the whistleblowers, he was instructed to extract organs from prisoners who were executed while others were merely brought in for organ harvest for the purpose of transplants. He said during the US Congress in June 2001 that he had to remove the skin and corneas from corpses to complete the process.

Although the country has insisted that it has put a stop to this practice since 2015, the report suggested otherwise. Another journalist investigation showed that the rate of executions and the number of organs taken therefrom were labeled as a state secret, as per EndTransplantAbuse.Org. In fact, it was revealed that although organ transplants usually take months of waiting, patients wait even as soon as a couple of days when conducted in China. The reporters suggested that the on-demand executions of Falun Gong followers covers for the system to get “fresh” organs out of the prisoners against their will.