Human Rights Activists Criticize China for Organ Harvesting
PHILLIPS: Before the break we met Eric De Leon, a cancer patient determined to survive, even if it meant going to China for a high- cost, high-risk transplant of dubious origins. Why China? Plenty of donors, willing or otherwise, and a government happy that's happy to provide them, if the price is right. Here, again, CNN's Randi Kaye.</s>KAYE (voice-over): For Eric De Leon, it is a race against the clock. Nine cancerous tumors are eating away at his liver. Chemotherapy hardly made a dent. And because his cancer will likely come back, doctors in the United States have taken Eric off the transplant list. But Eric is refusing to give up, refusing to die.</s>E. DE LEON: I said I'm going to beat this. I am going to do whatever it takes to get this done. I'm not going to leave my family behind.</s>KAYE: Eric's doctors aren't nearly as confident. A transplant coordinator at Eric's California hospital wrote this note, "I guess he is toast and he is looking to get transplant in China. Oh, well, life is sweet." A world away, after mortgaging his home, Eric finds hope. China is offering organ transplants to foreign patients willing to pay whatever it costs. It's called organ tourism. Eric finds a Chinese transplant service. Two weeks later, Eric and his wife are in Shanghai. (on camera) You were never given any indication that your husband's new liver may come from a prisoner?</s>LORI DE LEON, WIFE: Not -- no, we weren't told beforehand that this is where it's coming from. We weren't told after.</s>KAYE (voice-over): With more than 4,700 prisoners executed in China over the last two years, according to Amnesty International, there is no shortage of organs, but the organs may be coming from prisoners who did not provide consent. Critics say some organs in China are even taken before the prisoner is actually dead. (on camera) Remember, not any donor is suitable because of the risk of rejection. Blood and tissue types must match as closely as possible. In China, Eric and other would-be recipients provide a blood sample. Then Chinese doctors find a match. But for some activists and physicians, that raises the question about the timing of certain executions.</s>E. DE LEON: Somebody was killed for me? Yes, I'd feel bad, but there's no way of knowing that.</s>KAYE (voice-over): The Chinese hospital gave Eric a cell phone and instructions. He and his wife should enjoy the sites until the cell phone rang. That would signal a matching organ was available. Though nervous, a new liver seemed all but certain. They did enjoy being tourists. Then, just two weeks later the phone rang. After five and a half hours in the operating room, Eric had a healthy new liver, a second chance at life. U.S. doctors are seeing more and more transplant patients who have returned from China.</s>DR. THOMAS DIFLO, TRANSPLANT SURGEON, NYU MEDICAL CENTER: Whatever that source might be one can speculate about. However, there is significant correlation between the actual number of executions that are done at any particular time and the number of transplants that are done.</s>KAYE: Some doctors, like New York transplant surgeon Thomas Diflo, believe what may be happening to prisoners in China is a gross violation of human rights. He refuses to treat people who have had surgery in China. Dr. Diflo recalls the first time he heard about it. It was a female patient. I said, "Where did you get your organ?" And she said, "From an executed prisoner." Dr. Diflo was horrified. So what is the United States doing to stop organ tourism? Chris Smith and more than a dozen other congressmen wrote this letter to the president of China, demanding the practice be changed. No response.</s>SMITH: The Chinese government, unfortunately, is largely tone- deaf when it has come to human rights.</s>KAYE: The Chinese government refused our request for an interview but issued this statement to CNN. "The reports about China's random transplant of organs from executed criminals are untrue and a malicious slander against the Chinese judiciary system," adding "in China it is very prudent to use organs from death penalty criminals."</s>SMITH: The bigger the lie, the better people will swallow it. And this is a big lie.</s>KAYE: As for Eric De Leon, he says the answer is more donors in the U.S. More than 90,000 people are on the transplant waiting list in the United States today. Last year, 6,268 people died while waiting. Still, Dr. Diflo calls Eric's decision ethically irresponsible and unacceptable. Eric has no regrets. (on camera) What if they didn't consent?</s>E. DE LEON: If they didn't consent, that's a hard question.</s>KAYE: Would you still want that liver?</s>E. DE LEON: I don't think I would, but I don't think we'll ever know that.</s>L. DE LEON: Everybody has the right to their own opinion. If you're not in the shoes that my husband was in, or my position where, you know, you're so close to home with it, it's very hard for you to even judge somebody or state what you would or wouldn't do.</s>KAYE (voice-over): So while the foreign powers figure out how to come to terms on organ tourism, Eric's children celebrate their dad's recovery.</s>DOMINIC DE LEON, SON: I looked there and felt the liver.</s>KAYE (on camera): You felt the liver in his shirt? Did you hug him and tell him you loved him?</s>D. DE LEON: Yes.</s>KAYE: What did you say to him?</s>D. DE LEON: I love you.</s>KAYE (voice-over): With a 90 percent chance his cancer will return and no spot on the transplant list, Eric is making the most of his time with family and quietly thanking the stranger who saved him, whether he did so willingly or not. Randi Kaye, CNN, San Mateo, California.</s>PHILLIPS: And you can see more stories from Randi Kaye on Anderson Cooper's show. Catch "AC 360" weeknights, 10 Eastern, 7 Pacific. More than 30 years and billions of dollars later, Bill Gates is giving up the helm of Microsoft. The company's mega-rich co-founder is opting for a more philanthropic role starting in 2008. He believes with great wealth comes great responsibility, so he plans to oversee full time the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In light of that announcement, we wondered who benefits from that Gates Foundation and by how much? The answer is in today's "Fact Check".</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is said to be the world's largest philanthropic organization, supporting work in more than 100 countries, they say, with an endowment of more than $29 billion. The foundation focuses on improving the lives of the disadvantaged through health and education initiatives. Roughly 70 percent of the foundation grants last year were directed toward global causes. The rest spent on initiatives here in the United States. According to the organization's web site, last year's total grant payments were a little more than $1.3 billion. Some of the foundation's biggest commitments, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations at $1.5 billion. Another $1 billion is directed toward the United Negro College Fund. On the local level, the Adult United Way of King County is getting $55 million from the foundation. In all, Bill and Melinda Gates say in the last 12 years they have given more than $1 billion to charitable causes.</s>PHILLIPS: World Cup fever may finally be catching on in the United States, but that may not be such a good thing for employers. Susan Lisovicz live from the New York Stock exchange with that story. Hey, Susan.</s>SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kyra. You know, a lot of kids who played soccer are now entrenched in the workforce and so more Americans than before are watching the World Cup, and that means workers everywhere are sneaking peeks at TV screens and Web sites, faking cigarette breaks, even calling in sick to keep up with the tournament action. You know who you are. Experts are expecting a huge increase over the 3.9 million Americans who watched Brazil beat Germany in final of the 2002 World Cup. That's leading many U.S. companies, including Anheuser-Busch, McDonald's, Yahoo!, Coke, and MasterCard to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on official partnerships. But it could also lead to decreased productivity in many workplaces. For example, more than half of the TV monitors on some trading floors of Deutsche Bank's New York offices were tuned to the first U.S. game on Monday, which, unfortunately, the America squad lost 3-0 to the Czech Republic. Some employers are taking measures to keep workers focused. According to St. Bernard Software, 15 percent of companies are blocking Internet content related to the World Cup, but other companies are pandering, buying plasma TVs and throwing World Cup parties to boost morale and get employees to come to work. In any case, it's probably a good that the American team's next game against Italy is being played during the weekend. Tomorrow, Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: They'll be a lot of people watching.</s>LISOVICZ: Doing it on your own time.</s>PHILLIPS: Oh yes. Well, you know, the World Cup is always a huge event for betters. Which teams do you think are the popular picks on Wall Street?</s>LISOVICZ: Well, you know, that is intriguing. There is this whole theory of stock picking for the Super Bowl. We report on that each year. Well, Goldman Sachs has come up with a method for picking the World Cup winners based on stock market performance, the index ranking the top team's based on how well their country's stock markets have performed since the last World Cup. Their pick -- Ukraine followed by Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, and Mexico. Argentina, the Czech Republic and especially Brazil and all are expected to do well in this year's tournament. But Goldman's pick for the winner may be a bit off target. Ukraine to Spain 4-0 in its first match on Wednesday -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: All right, Susan. Let's talk about all the other stocks there on Wall Street. How is it looking?</s>PHILLIPS: Thanks, Susan. Well, eat your veggies and watch your waistline shrink. "Fit Nation" is just ahead on CNN, the most trusted name in news.</s>HOWARD CUTTER, WOODWORKER: My business uniform.</s>VALERIE MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seventy-two- year-old Howard Cutter spends the days of his retirement exactly as he hoped he would, fine-tuning his craft as an accomplished woodworker. He built his dream workshop after a 37-year career with</s>IBM. CUTTER: So I began maybe 10 years before I retired to say, what can I do if I could do whatever I wanted to do? And I'd always had a love of fine art and of design. Once I got the notion that I was doing pretty well, I decided I was going to build something a little more difficult. I tackled a rocking chair, which turned out to be a real challenge. And from beginning to end, it took me about three years to finish it. I started entering juried competitions and when I began to win ribbons, I started making things and putting them in several galleries. There's nothing that's quite as nice as when somebody sees something you've done and say I love it and can you do one like that for me? Absolutely I'm living my dream. It's a thrill to get up and come out here every day.</s>MORRIS: Valerie Morris, CNN, New York.