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Call for Retraction of 400 Scientific Papers On Organ Transplantation Amid Fears That Organs Came From Chinese Prisoners (theguardian.com)
A world-first study has called for the mass retraction of more than 400 scientific papers on organ transplantation, amid fears the organs were obtained unethically from Chinese prisoners. The Guardian reports: The Australian-led study exposes a mass failure of English language medical journals to comply with international ethical standards in place to ensure organ donors provide consent for transplantation. The study was published on Wednesday in the medical journal BMJ Open. Its author, the professor of clinical ethics Wendy Rogers, said journals, researchers and clinicians who used the research were complicit in "barbaric" methods of organ procurement.
"There's no real pressure from research leaders on China to be more transparent," Rogers, from Macquarie University in Sydney, said. "Everyone seems to say, 'It's not our job.' The world's silence on this barbaric issue must stop." A report published in 2016 found a large discrepancy between official transplant figures from the Chinese government and the number of transplants reported by hospitals. While the government says 10,000 transplants occur each year, hospital data shows between 60,000 to 100,000 organs are transplanted each year. The report provides evidence that this gap is being made up by executed prisoners of conscience.
"There's no real pressure from research leaders on China to be more transparent," Rogers, from Macquarie University in Sydney, said. "Everyone seems to say, 'It's not our job.' The world's silence on this barbaric issue must stop." A report published in 2016 found a large discrepancy between official transplant figures from the Chinese government and the number of transplants reported by hospitals. While the government says 10,000 transplants occur each year, hospital data shows between 60,000 to 100,000 organs are transplanted each year. The report provides evidence that this gap is being made up by executed prisoners of conscience.
...was many centuries ago however... The science is still valid though which is what matters...
A while ago, a bunch of Nazi scientists did some very, very unethical research. It was the kind of thing that would turn most people's stomachs. But rather than throw it away, we kept it, and for two reasons.
First, it was new data. They studied things that nobody else was studying (with reason) and medical science learned a lot from this.
Secondly, throwing it away would mean that those who died during this died for nothing. At least this way their sacrifice led to something meaningful.
Provided that these studies are accurate, they shouldn't be rejected, purely because we don't like the source. Sure, stop more abuses and ensure that there aren't any more studies in this vein, but the data exists, don't just throw it away. Keeping it means that we know more and there's less call to repeat these studies!
Unless the papers were on ethics of organ translation, why would they need to be retracted, is the research any less valid just because research involved unethically obtained organs? Papers usually get retracted if the contents are bs, fabrication or plagiarism, not for an ethics problem with the research itself. Science is practical like that, what is true is true, what is false is false, ethics are a completely separate topic.
While most is purloined from elsewhere, the rest of it is tainted in the same way Nazi Science is tainted.
China is a Totalitarian Communist Dictatorship with a facade of a Capitalist Economy.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
For those posting with comments along the lines of: "Why doesn't it matter if innocent slaves were tortured, the science is valid?!"
Ethics in medical (any) science is a very important, and we shouldn't encourage third-world dictatorships to create more suffering by accepting unethical medical research.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-ethics-of-using-medical-data-from-nazi-experiments
Holocaust survivor Susan Vigorito found the use of the word "data" a sterile term. She was 3½ when she and her twin sister, Hannah, arrived at Auschwitz. They were housed for an entire year in Mengele's private lab in a wooden cage a yard and a half wide. Without anesthetic, Mengele would repeatedly scrape at the bone tissue of one of her legs. Her sister died from repeated injections to her spinal column. She claims that she is the real data, the living data of Dr. Mengele.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4822534/
that many of those victims only crime was to be against the government doing/allowing stuff like this to happen.
Sadly, only Chinese people have any real chance of stopping the Chinese government.
Organ harvesting from a Nazi-like Chinese government exists, and is going on. Discarding the research sends a message the practice must die out, and good ethical science will replace it like it was never there.
Continuing to allow this does exactly that. It continues to allow prisoners to have their organs unethically harvested in a macabre dystopian 3rd world manner.
You're an apologist. You should have your organs harvested.
The far lefties KNOW that China is unethical in many things.
Yes: everyone knows that.
This is just more of the same that they continue to back.
There's no outrage quite like manufactured outrage. Go on point to when someone you consider "the left" supported China. Bonus points for telling me that China is communist without actually showing when someone supported them.
SJW n. One who posts facts.