Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Oct. 21st, 2014

[Dr. Damon Noto]

Just one further point here is that one of the big problems we have is that the international standard for transplantation means you should be open to scrutiny, which means the public should have the ability to go in and look at your transplant numbers, where they're coming from, and if it's being done ethically. China fails on this completely. There are no third parties that can look at or verify anything that takes place within China.

That's a big part of the problem that the transplant community has with China. We can't verify all these things. They won't let you. They just don't give you access to any of this.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Given the aging population and demographic reality in China, will there be even greater demand for organ transplants in the coming decades? Or is it the international community that's keeping the demand high?

[Dr. Damon Noto]

I think it will be both. China's mean income is coming up, and the demand worldwide for organs is just going to increase over the next five to ten years. So in my opinion, the demand will go higher.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

You stressed earlier, or I think you were suggesting, that putting pressure on the medical community would be more beneficial then a direct push on the Chinese government. I think this should probably be double-barrelled, but at the same time, is it your feeling that putting pressure on the international medical community would be more beneficial to try to reach a resolve?

[Dr. Damon Noto]

Actually, I was just saying that I know more about the medical community, but I think it needs to be double-effect. I know that in the U.S. a lot of medical doctors are working on a resolution, which is going through Congress right now and hopefully will be passed this year, that pretty much has a very strong stance against organ harvesting in China, possibly banning people being able to go to China for organs.

I think the medical community feels that we need to do it definitely from both angles, but the problem with us is that I feel the medical community is being somewhat hypocritical saying “Yes, we should be doing something” when we still allow them in all our organizations. When we talk about being complicit in a crime against humanity, it's very sad that in this day in age our own medical community might be being very complicit in a crime against humanity.

[Ethan Gutmann]

I think Damon has really hit on it here. The dilemma is that if you push the medical community to go out there and talk to their Chinese counterparts and try to influence them, you enter a process of engagement. We just went through that for two years, and it led to exactly that—the feeling of, well, the medical community kind of has this under control and the problem is sort of ending. Look, I felt that too when I was writing my book, but the fact was that of course it was not true.

So you have a choice. You may have to actually take more punitive measures to make the point, so engagement in this case may not be a pleasant thing. I think that would be a great starting point for the medical community. They don't have a lot of experience in doing this kind of negotiation.

I used to live in Beijing. I used to do a lot of business negotiations. I mean, you never come in saying I'm not going to verify what happens here.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I have just one point. I know Mr. Cotler said he had brought in a private member's bill and that he's way down on the totem pole and so it probably won't make it to the floor.

Lots of times we hear devastating testimony at this particular committee, and then we keep it in this room more or less, and by the time we bring out a report, it could be six months or a year down the road, and it's already history.

I suggest to this committee that after we hear your testimony—and I think there's more—we at least put out a statement of what we feel as a committee now, not six months from now. It might fall on some ears that will listen.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you, Mr. Schellenberger.

Mr. Benskin, please.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you.

We do indeed hear some pretty horrific stories from around the world of what we as human beings do to each other, and how ingenious we can be at times in finding new ways or refurbishing old ways of hurting each other.

I have a quick question and then a question and comment. I'm assuming the largest part of the organ tourism, which is a rather creepy name if you forgive my colloquialism, is that people can afford it, and I assume the largest recipients in the Chinese population are people who can afford it.

But you said earlier the average Chinese person pays significantly less than what a foreigner would pay. Would you comment on whether or not you believe that's a means of keeping the average Chinese public on side with what's going on. You said before as far as the average Chinese person's concerned there's not a lot of outcry against what's happening to the Falun Gong practitioners.

Could it be because it allows them to have access to these organs if they should need them?

[Ethan Gutmann]

How is the average Chinese organ tourist different from a western organ tourist? There's not a “single” western organ tourist, because we know there are plenty. Not one has written anything. It's very difficult to interview them. Hospitals of course are very protective, but I've recently scored an interview with a Chinese fellow in the U.K. and am expecting to interview him when I get back.

No. The organ tourists do not complain. First of all they are kept away from the process, so they are allowed a level of plausible deniability about what is going on. They are desperate people. They are undergoing a miracle in their lives. These are people who are very sick and suddenly rise out of a hospital bed and go on to live another 25 years.

I don't see a huge difference in that. Everybody's allowed to pretend this isn't going on, and they are no different. The only person who has written about this is Daniel Asa Rose, a nice humorist from Massachusetts

[Dr. Damon Noto]

I think part of it is doing business as usual in China. What I mean by that is if a westerner goes to a hotel in China, they are paying approximately 50% more than the average Chinese person. It's standard business.

But I think the other aspect of it is it's highly possible that members within the Communist Party enjoy this as a privilege, and if they needed an organ transplant they have easy access to organs.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Okay, thank you.

Also, Mr. Gutmann, you mentioned before that the economic aspect of this—I can't remember the words you used—is not as much of an issue as.... I would ask you to comment, or I'm going to challenge that a bit, for the simple reason that throughout history we've seen how various dominant cultures have used one form or another of inhumanity toward humans—for example, slavery in America—as an economic driver for their countries.

It seems to me that the skill set—if you'll forgive—that the Chinese are building, even in the experimentation of drugs, pharmaceuticals, and things of this nature, is tantamount to what the Nazis did in the concentration camps, to the economic boon of what slavery was to America, and to what's happening in various other countries right now in terms of cheap or no-paid labour.

So to have this literal treasure trove of organs available on demand is a massive economic storehouse. The economics of this can't be overlooked. I think, first and foremost, cutting down on economic tourism, drying up that aspect of the economic boon to China, is something we can do in the west. We can say that our people cannot go there and contribute to this situation by bypassing our laws and going to China to get organs.

Would you comment on that?

[Ethan Gutmann]

Yes, I think what you just said is incredibly persuasive.

I would only add that China has a propensity to do its dirty work through entrepreneurial work if possible. In other words, Deng Xiaoping, as an old army guy, said to the military that they'd have to start paying some of their own freight because they cost too much, and to do whatever they needed to do to make money. That ended up including prostitution and all kinds of bad hotels, and in some cases drugs. In fact, when the AIDS crisis came to China, the army solved it pretty much by cleaning up the drug situation and the prostitution.

So I think the military has certainly used this in their own way to make money, and it probably means a lot to them. This probably has all sorts of kickbacks to other officials. I think those officials would miss some of that money, even if it were a small change in the money.

I really do agree with your point. I'm just saying that we can't look at the money alone. This is an attempt to destroy a people. I don't really care if it falls under the exact definition of genocide; it's certainly mass murder. This is an attempt to wipe out Falun Gong, which became a troublesome group—more than troublesome, a group that absolutely stubbornly refused to go away. They were supposed to be beaten in three months, and they're still around, as you know.

So I think that part of it...that the leadership.... This became an issue of face. This has become an issue of national pride or party pride for the Chinese. These two things are unfortunately closely interlinked at this point.

[Dr. Damon Noto]

I have just a quick comment. Economically it's been estimated that this industry is easily over one billion dollars a year. One person, if done well, could be worth close to $500,000 if you extracted multiple organs.

But I think, going to Ethan's point, you had a perfect storm here. You had a group of people the government wanted to get rid of. They were troublesome to the government, a very vulnerable group, and the government had a way to make a lot of money off them. And I agree, this a hard system to stop.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

And that perfect storm has repeated itself throughout history. In all those cases it's been a perfect storm of accessibility, projected need, and some sort of uniqueness that could be pulled out of a group of people to demonize them, to make it easier and more palatable for the general public to accept what was going on and thereby isolate those groups.

[Ethan Gutmann]

There's one other factor that I think people neglect sometimes. One of the ideas of the anti-Falun Gong campaign was to make everybody in society complicit. That meant you went down to the lowest party level, the old women with the arm bands who walked around the hutong making sure it was clean. Everybody had to get involved. Everybody had to make statements against Falun Gong, from dog catcher all the way up to the top.

So it becomes a sort of “thick as thieves” situation for the entire society. This is, of course, is the great problem and the great tragedy for China, because this ultimately makes democracy impossible, when everybody is guilty.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you for indulging me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I did indulge you a wee bit. It's up to nine minutes right now.

That's okay, it was largely very fulsome answers.

I have a couple of questions that actually come out of Mr. Benskin's questions, and then we'll wrap up here.

Dr. Noto, you said that in your estimate this is about a $1 billion industry right now, and that a person is worth about $500,000. I assume that means if a person's organs are harvested and more than one organ is used. Just to be clear with the economics, which ultimately drives this whole thing, that is to say, if it weren't profitable it would stop. Therefore, it would be helpful to me to understand that when you say a person is worth $500,000, is that in profit or volume of sales?

[Dr. Damon Noto]

Volume of sales.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Right, the profits involved are not $1 billion, but substantially below those.

[Dr. Damon Noto]

Correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Okay, that's helpful.

This raises a question. Given China's size and influence and the fact that other countries, the entire world community, are not going to be as confrontational with China over this or any other abuse that the PRC regime engages in, as they would be vis-à-vis virtually any country in the world, we can only influence them by causing them to see that it is not in their interest and making them voluntarily decide to change their practices. So this raises the question: is this whole organ harvesting industry seen, in your view, as a key state interest by the people in the regime itself who are capable of making change? Is it what we would assume they would regard as a key state interest that can't be changed, such as the one China policy for example, or is it a peripheral activity that would be judged non-essential under the right circumstances?

I'd actually be interested in both your answers, but I see, Mr. Gutmann, you'd like to start.

[Ethan Gutmann]

I do have a point about that.

I'm afraid I don't think it's quite either. I think the problem....

Let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that there are many in the Chinese leadership who wish this had never happened and wished we had never gotten to this point. The problem is that there are two factions always fighting within China. I don't even say which one is better than the other; I don't have a side. They might as well be the Bloods and Crips for all I care. The point is that neither of them can stop it because, among the ones who stop it, somebody will get blamed and one faction will take the brunt of the guilt for this. For that reason, like a game of musical chairs, this must continue.

That is more the way I see it, that they are stuck in this situation. They really don't know how to stop it. There may have been even an honest attempt within the medical community to do that, but it was believed that it would open up too many cans of worms, that once you started exposing this thing there would be a problem.

I may be wrong in that. That's just my interpretation of the events.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Just before you leave that point though, that assumes both stopping and exposing. Is it possible to stop without an actual forensic investigation as to who is responsible and without prosecution of past practices, that kind of thing?