UK patients 'buy transplants of dead Chinese'

BRITISH transplant surgeons have accused China of harvesting for sale the organs of thousands of executed prisoners every year, attracting patients from the UK who cannot find a donor.

The British Transplantation Society (BTS) condemned the practice - which China denies - as "unethical" and "unacceptable", saying it breached the human rights of prisoners.

Professor Stephen Wigmore, chairman of the BTS ethics committee, said he and his colleagues all knew of patients who had researched the possibility of going to China for transplants.

The BTS said it had evidence that: "suggests that the organs of executed prisoners are being removed for transplantation without the prior consent of either the prisoner or their family".

"The process is known to involve payment of money and may implicate transplant centres, patients, and the authorities and judiciary responsible for the prisoners."