Call for retraction of 400 papers amid fears organs came from Chinese prisoners
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
It should be possible both to set an example which discourages this practice in the future, without the loss of the research itself.
For a much lower stakes example: The bounty confiscated from poachers (ivory for instance) is destroyed instead of being legally sold to fund the anti-poaching efforts.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/wildlife-watch-i...
Mind you, I am not saying that your thesis has no value, rather that you have way more confidence in it than it deserves.
In some corrupt countries, ivory burns and crushes can act as a way to steal ivory because it is not all carefully recorded in its destruction. Although initially these acts made a statement as a cry for help, such as with the first Kenya burn in 1989 that helped put ivory out of fashion in the U.S. and Europe, many in Asia find destruction to be against their culture and think the ivory could be used for making an artistic monument as a long-term statement instead. It is the Asians, especially the Chinese, whose viewpoints on this issue count the most, as they are the main consumers of ivory. Ivory crushes can detract from what is really needed to save elephants: much greater efforts on law enforcement and improving ways to protect elephants in their natural habitat.
Experts clearly disagree, but I find arguments about sending messages or deterrence unconvincing, as they tend to come from the gut rather than the evidence. It’s just that kind of sloppy thinking that death penalty advocates often use when confronted with evidence as well.
society is already harmed by the initial crime, and now it has to pay the price a second time by forgetting?
strip the researchers' names and institutions from all copies of the articles, and adjust bibliographic standards of all reputable journals to require citations say the articles were authored by "Ethical disgrace" or whatever.
Here's a longish but well-argued explanation of why it's a terrible idea: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-ethics-of-using-med...
In any case, a retraction would not necessarily erase that knowledge. It would, however, limit its usefulness for the authors of these papers, in terms of reputation and citation count. That should serve as an incentive to more thoroughly investigate the provenance of that brain with a gun shot wound you're dissecting.
And no I dont view ill gotten evidence as a similar issue, seeing that the 'gained knowledge' is so narrow in it's scope.
Anyone can now replicate it.
This indicates between 50,000 and 90,000 'prisoners of conscience' EVERY YEAR are executed and have their organs harvested. That is 1,000 to 2,000 people per week executed essentially for opposing the govt.
Yet we continue to do business with this government and allow them into world trade and govt organizations as if they were somehow ethical or legitimate.
This needs to be re-thought.
Although obviously that's a pedantic quibble rather than a defence of the practice, as even a highly reduced number of such executions remains appalling.
I also didn't note the opposite, wondering how many are killed without having organs harvested and implanted, for whatever reason (disease, incompatibility, remote location, etc.).
Whichever form of error is likely present, I'm still just stunned by the magnitude of these numbers.
It really is the buried lede of the decade...
Are you going to stop, now that you think they are unethical?
I fully understand that any purchase supports that govt.
So yes, I already consciously and deliberately avoid purchasing any Chinese item whenever there is an option or I don't strictly need it.
E.g., the laptop and MBoard in my desktop are from Taiwan, Phone for SKorea, etc. I check labels on everything from clothes to furniture, absolutely refuse to buy any food or drugs made there (nevermind boycotts, just avoiding toxicity).
I also advocate against such dealings when I can. Treating this Chinese govt as if it were normal and legitimate will go down as a geopolitical blunder of historic proportions. Westerners think we're exploiting their cheap labor, while they are actually exploiting our myopic focus on quarterly profits above all, even strategic security.
Or are you suggesting we ignore (alleged) dozen of people executed every hour for organ harvesting?
In news that will make you want to shut the blinds, go back to bed until next week ... there's disturbing news out of South Korea that since August, officials have found over 17,000 pills filled with human flesh, in particular the placentas and ground up bodies of dead Chinese babies.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/ho...
Again, I feel like I missed a part of this article, so I'm genuinely confused.
EDIT: I was under the (erroneous) impression that these people were being executed for other crimes, like murder or rape or something. I didn't realize people were being executed on demand. That's terrifying.
Even if you were going to be executed anyway, you obviously have a right to determine what happens to your organs, particularly in cultures like China's, where it's seen as very important that the body remain whole.
In other words: It doesn't much matter if these people were convicted or not when the judicial system making those decisions is deeply flawed.
And, of course, there are the additional problems of the death penalty itself being rather anachronistic, and even people on death row remaining humans and retaining fundamental right to dignity, which would stand in the way of using them as spare part repositories against their own will.
So there's like eight layers of injustice until you can get a liver from a Chinese.