Trial ends for alleged organ traders  

地下团伙租用民房充当手术室 贩肾牟利近百万

一个“草台班子”团伙，租用民间私房充当手术室，通过网络联系肾脏出卖和植入对象，召集陕西“团队”跨省开刀移植器官，牟利近百万由该团伙瓜分……备受社会关注的武汉“地下贩肾”案近日开庭审理，庭审披露的相关细节令人震惊。[查看全文]

A trial closed for a group of a dozen alleged kidney traders at a district court in Wuhan on Monday, the first case of its kind in Hubei province after the act was deemed illegal by China's 2011 Criminal Law.

The verdict on the six cases of illegal kidney trade has yet to be announced, but if found guilty the traders can be fined and sentenced up to five years. If the case is "serious," the sentence can be longer than five years, the law states, without indicating how much.

Two people were instrumental in organizing six kidney transplants from the end of 2012 to August 2013, each costing between from 170,000 yuan ($27,217) to 360,000 yuan, a Jiangxia District People's Court press release announced on Monday.

One person bought surgical equipment and drugs, renting an apartment in Jiangxia district as an operating theater.

An unnamed doctor from a hospital in Shaanxi province performed the operations.

The 10 other accused connected kidney buyers and sellers on the Internet.

The organizers earned 400,000 yuan for the trade and the surgeon bagged 80,000 yuan an operation, more than six months' salary, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Transplant surgery has high standards at hospitals, said He Xiaoshun, vice president of the No. 1 Hospital Affiliated with Sun Yat-sen University. Without proper checks and standards, he warned, underground surgery can be harmful to patients and donors.

"There are only 169 qualified hospitals in China," He said. "They are all big, grade-three, first-class hospitals. It's against national regulations to operate without qualifications."

Organ transplants usually involve a donated organ, he explained. Regulations stipulate recipient and donor should be related if organs are to be taken from a living person.

"There are strict regulations about the health condition of the relative that require all kinds of examinations and reports from different departments," He said.

These trades are happening at such a high frequency as there's such a high demand for organ transplants, Henan-based lawyer Cui Xinjiang told the Global Times.

The demand for organ transplants in China is 200,000 to 300,000 a year, former deputy health minister Huang Jiefu said in 2012. About 10,000 receive operations.

A search for "kidney selling" on baidu.com begets 7,050,000 results, many containing phone numbers and messages begging for kidneys.

The law alone won't "completely" prevent organ trade, Cui said. More publicity is needed to help people obtain legal transplants, he said.