CHINA. BEAUTY PRODUCTS FROM THE SKIN OF EXECUTED PRISONERS

a Chinese cosmetics company was using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the UK daily Guardian discovered.
Agents for the firm had told would-be customers it was developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they had been shot. The agents said some of the company's products had been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts was "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about". When formally approached by the Guardian, the agent denied the company, which could not be identified for legal reasons, was using skin harvested from executed prisoners. However, he had already admitted it was doing precisely this during a number of conversations with a researcher posing as a Hong Kong businessman.
The agent told the researcher: "A lot of the research is still carried out in the traditional manner using skin from the executed prisoner and aborted foetus." This material, he said, was being bought from "bio tech" companies based in the northern province of Heilongjiang, and was being developed elsewhere in China.
In China, authorities denied that prisoners' body parts were harvested without their consent. However, there was evidence to suggest it was happening.
In June 2001, Wang Guoqi, a Chinese former military physician, told US congressmen he had worked at execution grounds helping surgeons to harvest the organs of more than 100 executed prisoners, without prior consent. The surgeons used converted vans parked near the execution grounds to begin dissecting the bodies, he told the house international relations committee's human rights panel.
Skin was said to be highly valued for the treatment of burn victims, and Dr Wang said that in 1995 he skinned a shot convict's body while the man's heart was still beating. Dr Wang, who was seeking asylum in the US, also alleged that corneas and other body tissue were removed for transplant, and said his hospital, the Tianjin paramilitary police general brigade hospital, sold body parts for profit.
Human rights activists in China had repeatedly claimed that organs were harvesting from the corpses of executed prisoners and sold to surgeons offering transplants to fee-paying foreigners.
Dr Wang's allegations infuriated the Chinese authorities, and in a rare move officials publicly denounced him as a liar. The government said organs were transplanted from executed prisoners only if they and their family gave consent.