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BEIJING (AP) - China issued guidelines Tuesday restricting organ transplants for foreigners, giving priority to Chinese patients in the government's latest effort to regulate procedures that have been criticized as profit-driven and unethical.
Little information about China's lucrative transplant business is publicly available. One human rights activist said there is fierce competition among hospitals to attract the foreigners, who make up an estimated 30 to 40 percent of transplant patients in China.
"This was a substantial source of financial revenue," said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong-Kong based China researcher with Human Rights Watch. He said most of those seeking transplants come from South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong.
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