A group of researchers is calling for the retraction of more than 400 scientific papers after a first-of-its-kind study that claims countless human organs were unethically harvested from prisoners in China.
The study, which was published in the journal BMJ Open and led by Australian researchers, highlights a facet of scientific ethics that does not receive a lot of attention. Namely, that many English-language academic journals do not follow international ethics rules over donor consent for organ transplants.
“There’s no real pressure from research leaders on China to be more transparent,” Wendy Rogers, a professor of clinical ethics at Macquarie University and the study’s author, told the Guardian. “Everyone seems to say, ‘It’s not our job.’ The world’s silence on this barbaric issue must stop.”
[...] The study looked at research papers published from January 2000 until April 2017. Researchers identified 445 studies involving 85,477 transplants. A staggering 92.5 percent failed to report whether or not organs were sourced from executed prisoners, while 99 percent failed to report that organ sources gave consent for transplantation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @12:14AM (5 children)
Those evil Chinese prisoners were probably innocent. Imprisoned for being moral.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 08 2019, @12:42AM (3 children)
Or ... they were murderers, rapists, drug traffickers ... The kind of people China has an ample supply of to put to death.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 08 2019, @12:55AM (2 children)
Alleged, of course. Always the problem with a system that doesn't try for justice.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 08 2019, @01:12AM (1 child)
I have no doubt that a rapidly-growing country, including 1.3B people, lots of new millionaires/billionaires, yet hundreds of millions of dirt-poor people, does find a few thousand people per year who did things they deem worthy of a bullet to the back of the head (and I don't support the death penalty except in extreme and unquestionable cases).
Being omniscient would be nice, allowing us to figure out the number of impolite demonstrators who don't get the hint after their first kneecapping and require a full framing for death-and-organs process. I am tempted to think that it is too much paperwork to be used as often are we are led to believe.
Whether they approach the improper conviction rate of the US is indeed the question.
By contrast, few people denounce Japan's amazing 99% conviction rate. Those are some really good cops, never nabbing the wrong guy. We should hire a few.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday February 08 2019, @03:17AM
Why should that be considered a problem? Sounds like they don't bring cases to court unless they have pretty solid evidence. For example [wikipedia.org]:
I doubt there are many people complaining about North Korea's conviction rate either.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 08 2019, @01:45AM
Just as Fan Bingbing was guilty?
No court of law examined evidence. No lawyer defended her. Formal charges were not announce and defended in court.
Imagine being held prisoner with the threat of death or worse hanging over your head.
They drained her back amounts and liquidated property worth an estimated 100 million dollars. Based on an accusation of contact fraud. An accusation that still has not been proven.
They came for Fan Bingbing and stole her wealth, but people said nothing because they were not millionaire Chinese movie stars.
They came for the head of Interpol, and no one said anything because international politics is belt and road mortgage unstable.
....