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Nobel Peace Prize nomination for Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) – a recognition of upholding ethical practices in medicine

A mere nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, the “world’s most prestigious prize, ” already attracts significant attention to the nominee, acts as an acknowledgment by itself, and serves as a catalyst for addressing the issue at hand. Although major advances in medicine are annually rewarded with a Nobel Prize, equally important ethical and humanitarian aspects of medicine have received much less attention, with the only two medical organizations awarded the Nobel Peace Prize being International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in 1985 and Doctors Without Borders in 1999 (1). Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) has been nominated for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for decade long efforts in raising awareness and informing the medical community and society about the unethical organ harvesting, with a particular focus on China (2). Forced organ harvesting, removal of organs from a donor without obtaining prior free and voluntary informed consent, is not only a crime against humanity, but a serious threat to medical science in general. The nomination of DAFOH is the second one related to forced organ harvesting in China, as human rights lawyers David Kilgour and David Matas were nominated in 2010 for their investigative work uncovering 41 500 unexplained organ transplants in China between 2000 and 2004 (3). Increased information on the topic, including significant contributions from DAFOH members, has led to the publication of the book State Organs – Transplant abuse in China in 2012, which describes medical, ethical, legal, and political underpinnings of state-sanctioned organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China (4). The topic is almost beyond-imagination: living prisoners of conscience are systematically examined and killed on the operating table for their organs on demand (3, 4). In 2012, DAFOH initiated a petition to the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights, gathering more than 2 million signatures worldwide within 3 years. Members of DAFOH were featured in documentaries on the topic of organ harvesting in China (“Human Harvest” and “Hard to Believe”). Moreover, DAFOH members regularly publish research articles addressing the transplant abuse (5). DAFOH is the only international medical organization that emphasizes prisoners of conscience as the major target group for forced organ harvesting in China (2). Since 2006, mounting evidence has suggested that prisoners of conscience are killed for their organs in China, with the brutally persecuted Buddhist practice, Falun Gong, being the primary target (see European Parliament Resolution and Workshop on Organ harvesting in China ; 6, 7).

organ harvesting, DAFOH, medical ethics, doctors against force organ harvesting

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