Hey, if it is acceptable to take the tissues of slaughtered innocents for scientific experimentation, why not the tissues of the guilty for consumer products?

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.

Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

Think about it. The killings are legal under Chinese law, and the tissues arguably benefit others. And unlike aborted babies, the criminals whose tissue is used are actually guilty of a crime, so their execution does not raise the same moral concerns as using the stem cells of infants killed for convenience. The Chinese have even tied the two issues together as part of their research and marketting.

The agent told the researcher: "A lot of the research is still carried out in the traditional manner using skin from the executed prisoner and aborted foetus." This material, he said, was being bought from "bio tech" companies based in the northern province of Heilongjiang, and was being developed elsewhere in China.

He suggested that the use of skin and other tissues harvested from executed prisoners was not uncommon. "In China it is considered very normal and I was very shocked that western countries can make such a big fuss about this," he said. Speaking from his office in northern China, he added: "The government has put some pressure on all the medical facilities to keep this type of work in low profile."

The agent said his company exported to the west via Hong Kong."We are still in the early days of selling these products, and clients from abroad are quite surprised that China can manufacture the same human collagen for less than 5% of what it costs in the west." Skin from prisoners used to be even less expensive, he said. "Nowadays there is a certain fee that has to be paid to the court."

So see, there is even a societal benefit to this product, for the government makes money selling the skin of the executed prisoners. So why be skittish about this? Is it really so different from the harvesting of fetal stem cells? What is the real difference?

The story also notes that this is not out of line with Chinese practice. Stories of organs and other tissues being harvested from executed prisoners in China have been circulated for years.

Of course, I oppose these products and the ghoulish practices that lead to their creation. But then again, I also have serious moral reservations about the use of fetal stem cells for medical research. I guess it just comes down to a question of respect for human life and the reduction of human beings to commodities.

Posted by: Greg at 01:11 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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