Organ transplantation in China has expanded rapidly in the past 20 years. According to official statistics, more than a million people in China need a transplant every year.Many transplants are being done. The China Liver Transplant Registry reports 20 048 recipients between January, 1993, and May 22, 2011. 1475 of these came from living donors. A representative of the Chinese Ministry of Health at the August, 2010, meeting in Vancouver, Canada, of the Transplantation Society reported similar figures.

Many residents of China might have benefited from kidney, liver, and other forms of transplantation. But the rapid expansion of the capacity to do transplantations has not been accompanied by the development of an ethical system for recovering organs from those who die in hospitals while on life support, as is international practice.2 And even though there is an inadequate supply of organs for its own citizens, there remains a brisk traffic to China to secure organ transplants. Transplant “tourists” find their way to China, frustrated by the long waiting times in their own countries and attracted by the competitive price.

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