China on the brink: there is hope for the end of their use of executed prisoner organs

This is an historic time for organ donation in China. Senior officials have declare openly (1), that as of January 1^st, 2015, its practice of transplanting organs from executed prisoners will cease and will be replaced by the organs of donors who die within the hospital setting. Since an awareness of the practice was brought to international attention a decade ago the use of organs from executed prisoners has been repeatedly condemned by the international medical community including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Transplantation Society (TTS) (2), and the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group (DICG) (3). A proposed academic veto was also widely enforced (4).