En Chine, la recherche se fait aussi sur les organes de condamnés à mort

Manifestation à Paris contre la peine de mort en Chine et le prélèvement d'organes sur des condamnés à mort exécutés.

Click here to Google translate this story into your own language.

Plus de 400 études chinoises auraient utilisé les données de transplantations d'organes prélevés sur des condamnés à mort. Un sérieux problème d'éthique pour les revues à comité de lecture et les instances scientifiques.

Des dizaines de milliers d'organes prélevés sans consentement alimentent un vaste marché de la transplantation en Chine. L'horreur est connue depuis plus de dix ans. Ce qu'on savait moins, c'est que les prélèvements effectués qui - de fait - condamnent à mort les détenus, ainsi que les greffes qui s'en suivent, sont utilisés pour fournir la recherche en données médicales... pour les publier dans les plus grandes revues scientifiques anglo-saxonnes.

Plus de 400 études nourrissant la recherche sur la transplantation d'organes et le développement de médicaments anti-rejets seraient concernées. C'est ce que révèle une équipe australienne de médecins, philosophes et membres d'ONG qui a fait les comptes dans le BMJ.

Plus de 80.000 transplantations suspectes

Dirigée par Wendy Rogers, professeure d'éthique médicale à l'université Macquarie (Sydney, Australie), l'équipe a analysé les 445 études scientifiques publiées entre 2000 et 2017 dans des revues médicales anglophones portant sur des transplantations faites en Chine. Ce qui représente 85.477 opérations, pour autant d'organes : foies, reins et cœurs essentiellement. Pour 439 d'entre elles, il était impossible de trouver trace écrite du consentement des "donneurs". 412 étaient dans l'incapacité de dire si, oui ou non, les organes utilisés provenaient de personnes exécutées. Même les revues prestigieuses du domaine comme le Journal of American Transplantation et le journal officiel de la Transplantation Society qui sont dotées de règles claires en la matière n'étaient pas épargnées.

Les auteurs relèvent ainsi qu'il "existe un grand nombre de recherches non éthiques publiées, ce qui pose des questions de complicité, dans la mesure où le milieu de la transplantation utilise les résultats de cette recherche et en tire des avantages. Notre étude a identifié l'étendue de ce problème ainsi que des documents spécifiques contenant des affirmations manifestement fausses sur l'approvisionnement en organes. Les examinateurs, les rédacteurs en chef et les éditeurs (des revues scientifiques, ndlr) ont manqué de vigilance et n'ont pas respecté les normes éthiques reconnues. Les chercheurs et les cliniciens qui utilisent ce corpus risquent d'être complices en acceptant implicitement les méthodes chinoises d'obtention d'organes. Nous appelons à la rétractation immédiate de tous les documents faisant état de recherches fondées sur l'utilisation d'organes provenant de prisonniers exécutés, et à la tenue d'un sommet international pour élaborer une politique future en matière de recherche sur la transplantation chinoise."

Interdiction officielle en 2015

Autrement dit, quiconque, médecin, chercheur, revue scientifique ou laboratoire pharmaceutique utiliserait de près ou de loin les données de ces études se rendrait complice du système chinois d'obtention des organes. Très loin des règles d'éthique médicale qui prévalent en Occident.

La question se pose : une étude scientifiquement valide peut-elle être rétractée en raison d'une transgression éthique ? Oui, cela arrive. Début 2017, Wendy Rogers, déjà, avait convaincu le journal spécialisé Liver International de retirer une étude portant sur les suites de 564 greffes de rein réalisées à l'hôpital universitaire de Zhejiang. Elle avait montré qu'il était impossible que ce seul hôpital ait pu récupérer autant de reins utilisables en quatre ans dans les conditions rapportées par les auteurs. Mais supprimer 400 études du corpus serait une autre affaire.

Le prélèvement d'organes sur prisonniers condamnés à mort n'a été officiellement interdit qu'en 2015 en Chine. Mais dans les faits, les registres nationaux de donneurs d'organes mis en place pour normaliser les circuits et garantir l'arrêt de ces prélèvements non éthiques ne permettent toujours pas de s'assurer de la fin de cette pratique. Il est de fait impossible de tracer les origines des organes.

➤ FIND related content here

En 2016, l'ancien député canadien David Kilgour, qui avait été le premier en 2006 à dénoncer la situation en Chine, a publié un nouveau rapport accablant. Montrant qu'entre 60.000 et 90.000 opérations de ce genre avaient eu lieu en Chine en 2015, contre seulement 10.000 greffes d'organes officiellement déclarées. Des données d'autant plus inquiétantes que la Chine est soupçonnée de réaliser les prélèvements forcés d'organes sur ses prisonniers d'opinions comme les Ouighours et les pratiquants du Falun Gong, deux minorités persécutées.

Source: sciencesetavenir.fr, Hugo Jalinière, March 10, 2019

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog