Japan votes to lift ban on child organ transplants

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Japan votes to lift ban on child organ transplants

By Harumi Ozawa – 4 days ago

TOKYO (AFP) — Japan's lower house on Thursday voted to scrap a ban on child organ donations, paving the way for patients aged under 15 to receive life-saving transplants here for the first time.

The law has so far banned organ transplants by children, a situation which activists say has claimed thousands of lives and forced many families to send children in need of transplants on costly overseas trips for surgery.

Transplants have been rare even for adults because tough rules have required donors to give prior written consent to having their organs harvested when they are brain dead, while their families have also had to agree.

The amended bill, if passed, would scrap the age limit and the need for prior consent, unless the person explicitly objected in advance to having their organs used. It would still require family members to agree.

The bill was approved by 263 to 167 votes and sent to the upper house. Even if it is rejected there, a two thirds majority in the lower house could turn it into law anyway under Japan's legislative rules.

"I'm glad to see the bill being approved by the house, but I still have to ask why it took so many years," said Michikata Okubo, who leads a network of organ transplant recipients. "Thousands of people are dying every year."

Keiichiro Nakazawa -- whose one-year-old son Sotaro died last year in the United States while waiting for a heart donation -- said: "I cannot help thinking my son would have been saved if the amendment had come earlier."

The major political parties have told their legislators in both chambers to vote according to their conscience. Only the Japanese Communist Party abstained, claiming there had not been enough deliberation.

Japan's conservative Prime Minister Taro Aso, despite voting against the bill, later welcomed its passage, Kyodo news agency reported.

"It's good the legislative body reached a decision in response to calls from those who seek organ transplants," he was quoted as saying, adding that he had contemplated the issue deeply because it related to the subject of death.

The bill recognises that patients who are medically brain dead are legally dead, long a controversial topic in Japan where many religious groups say a person is only deceased once their heart and lungs have stopped.

Japan adopted an Organ Transplant Law in 1997, but since then only 81 transplants have been carried out, compared to several thousand each year in the United States and several hundred annually in Europe.

The new law would pave the way for more organ donations among adults by removing the requirement of prior written consent by all donors.

The long-debated reform plans were fast-tracked this year after the World Health Organization (WHO) signalled it would ask signatory nations in early 2010 to limit organ transplants to within their national boundaries.

In the move against so-called transplant tourism, which seeks to limit abuses, Australia, Britain and Germany have already announced they would refuse Japanese patients seeking organ transplants.

"The target was Japan when the WHO told countries to take care of their own donations," said Masataka Kenmoku, who had lobbied for the bill.

"It is unethical to impose such a burden on other countries while Japan does not revise its own law."

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