An extraordinary case illustrates a well-established system of cadaver trade in China.

By Lily Zhou | The Epoch Times

Summary

The allegations against a former state-owned biomaterial company and an affiliated firm reveal a complex and disturbing scheme of trading in stolen cadavers over an eight-year period.

According to a leaked court document, dated May 23, Shanxi Osteorad Biomaterial Co., and an affiliated firm, engaged in the illegal acquisition of more than 4,300 human cadavers from several funeral homes, a transplant center, and a medical university, to make bone grafting materials. The leaked document was first posted on the Chinese social media platform Weibo on Aug. 8 by Yi Shenghua, a lawyer from Beijing with almost 2.8 million followers.

The document notes Shanxi Osteorad was founded in 1999 by the state-owned China Institute for Radiation Protection. One of the company’s two shareholders, Su Chengzhong, set up a separate firm, Sichuan Hengpu Technology Limited, in 2014, and sourced cadavers by gaining control over four funeral homes through investment, subcontracts, and infiltration.

The case has sparked public outrage and media attention in China, but there has also been an apparent effort to censor information about the scandal, with reports and social media posts being removed.

The allegations point to the broader issue of a black market for human remains in China, which has implications for the medical industry and the ethical treatment of human tissue, and calls into question the oversight and regulation of the country’s biomaterial companies.

U.S.-based China commentator Tang Jingyuan said he believes the case illustrated a well-established system of cadaver trade in China and a black market economy backed by the Chinese Communist Party which treats human beings as a source of revenue dead or alive.

Tang said the case raises concerns about the rights of families to decide what happens to the bodies of loved ones, the nature of death that resulted in the cadavers becoming available for sale in secret, and why there were no families to claim the bodies.

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