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May 20, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – In today’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Ethan Gutmann, an investigative writer and defender of human rights, joins Jonathon to discuss the live organ harvesting that he discovered was happening in China.  

Van Maren and Gutmann discuss the current situation in China, how Gutmann uncovered the live harvesting of organs 15 years ago, and why Gutmann thinks this is a good reason for us to be cautious in our dealings with China.  

Gutmann lived in China from 1998 to 2002 and was able to see the persecution of the Chinese people firsthand. He had a fairly optimistic view of China prior to moving there, thinking that the opening of the economy to Western business was a good sign. After seeing the Falun Gong religious ceremony in Bejing and the persecution festival goers suffered, Gutmann realized the Chinese regime wasn’t as open as he thought.  

Watch the full interview: 

Gutmann also saw the censorship of information on the internet and its use as a surveillance tool as further red flags for what was actually happening in China.  

It was all of these experiences that inspired Gutmann to begin investigating what was happening in China and lead to the book The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China's Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem.  

Gutmann’s book was hailed as an “atom bomb” by Donald Morrison of Time magazine. It took Gutmann seven years to interview and write The Slaughter, exposing the terrible organ harvesting occurring in China. 

In China, doctors harvest organs from living individuals, mostly prisoners, for healthy people who can pay enough for the new organs. This began with prisoners who were being executed for committing a crime and spread to prisoners in labor camps, and other individuals. Gutmann’s book focuses on actual experiences of people in prison camps, including doctors, who report people waking up on operating tables while their organs were being harvested.  

Listen to the full interview: 

Gutmann recounts an interview he had with a woman who had escaped from a labor camp. She mentioned a medical examination the camp completed that didn’t make sense to her. After hearing her explain the examination, Gutmann realized they were looking to see how healthy her organs were. She hadn’t realized it and even got frustrated with Gutmann for asking about this seemingly insignificant exam when she wanted to share her sufferings and spiritual struggle from her time in the labor camp.  

Gutmann also shares the story of a doctor who took out the kidney and liver of a man who had been shot, but not fatally. His heart was still beating throughout the operation.  

When a demonstration broke out in 1997, the Chinese government shot many of the protestors and began harvesting their organs. It was clear this was “state run.” 

Around this same time, provinces across China began building transplant centers, training surgeons and surgical teams.  

Who gets the organs? The Chinese middle class and very wealthy people. This has become so much of a problem that organ tourism is now an industry of sorts in China.  

According to Chinese medical journals, the average age individuals from which organs are harvested is 28. Gutmann highlights the fact that 28 years old is not an age when significant amounts of the population are dying.  

Gutmann tells listeners that the Chinese created and patented a device that “knocks out your cerebral cortex,” effectively leaving one in what some would call “brain death” – a perfect state to harvest healthy, functioning organs. 

According to Gutmann, there are one to three million Chinese people of non-Han Chinese descent who are in concentration camps. These people are disappearing at a rate of about 25,000 per year, almost certainly due to organ harvesting.  

A healthy individual’s organs can be harvested and sold for half a million to a million dollars to organ tourists.  

Gutmann points to this grotesque abuse of human rights as a good reason for international powers to be wary of the Chinese government and their dealings with China. If a country can do this to its people, what other things will it be willing to do for its own benefit?