Conference On Organ Trafficking Endorsed

The World Medical Association and the Chinese Medical Association are to hold a joint conference on medical ethics and human rights, following reports of organs being taken from executed and living prisoners in China. The historic meeting, which will focus on these allegations, will be held in Beijing later this year or next year.

Plans for the conference were endorsed at a meeting of the WMA in Montevideo today, Friday. It follows last month?s meeting between WMA leaders and officials from the Chinese Medical Association, when a joint statement was issued condemning as “illegal and ethically completely unacceptable”, the involuntary or forced removal and sale of organs.

Dr Anders Milton, chairman of the WMA Council, said: “Today the Chinese have vowed to work for the strengthening and upholding of the law in China, so that if further allegations are made about organ trafficking we can rely on the Chinese Medical Association to try to rectify the situation.”

Dr Milton said it was important to hold the conference in China so that the right message could be promoted to China’s 300,000 doctors. Invitations will also be sent to the seventeen members of the Confederation of Medical Associations of Asia and Oceania.