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Famous German Anatomist Refuted Falun Gong’s Rumors on Live Organ Harvest (Photo)

2013-10-23 Source:Kaiwind Author:Xia Tong

According to reports released by Vienna Radio Network on July 12, Gunther von Hagens, a famous German anatomist, recently held an exhibition of human bodies, which triggered Falun Gong’s imagination of live organ harvest. As a response to Falun Gong’s doubts, Doctor Hagens held a news conference, claiming that none of the exhibited human bodies was from China. The statement made by Doctor Hagens refuted Falun Gong’s rumors about live organ harvest.

 

Gunther von Hagens

Famous German anatomist Gunther von Hagens recently held Real Human Bodies Exhibition in the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, the capital of Austria. Through the presentation of more than 200 real, anatomically prepared human bodies, the exhibition conveyed descriptive knowledge of human body and life. On the exhibition of human bodies, however, Falun Gong adherents and an American journalist Ethan Gutmann asked Hagens to provide results of DNA tests on the exhibited specimens so as to determine whether those were remains of Falun Gong practitioners. According to Gutmann, some of the female human body specimens had short legs, which was a distinctive feature of Chinese people. Since some other specimens were lacking lungs, kidneys or other internal organs, Gutmann guessed that those were Falun Gong practitioners who were killed and victims of live organ harvest.

As a response to doubts of Ethan Gutmann and Falun Gong organization, Dr. Hagens held a press conference, claiming that all of the human bodies were remains of donators. He added that these donators had clearly expressed their hope to donate their remains to public education projects of health and anatomy. Since the human body donation project was established by the Institute of Plastination in Heidelberg in 1982, more than 13, 000 people had registered to donate their remains. Most of these people came from Germany and the US, while none was from China. The project was under supervision of Heidelberg Municipality. As early as eight years ago, Dr. Hagens already responded to criticism about his use of remains of Chinese prisoners under death sentence for the purpose of exhibition.

Gunther von Hagens was born in German Democratic Republic in 1942, and worked as anatomist at the University of Heidelberg since 1978. He founded the Institute of Plastination under the University of Heidelberg in 1993. He invented the technique for preserving biological tissue specimens called plastination. This innovative technique involves preserving human bodies and organs without formalin.

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