(Minghui.org) The president of The Transplantation Society, a global non-governmental transplantation organization based in Montreal, disputed on Friday the Chinese claim that China's transplant system is supported by the world, according a New York Times article.

During the 26^th International Congress of The Transplantation Society in Hong Kong, Chinese state-run newspaper Global Times, reported: “Scholars say this special Chinese organ transplant meeting shows that the Chinese organ transplant world has been truly accepted by The Transplantation Society.”

However, Dr. Philip J. O'Connell, president of The Transplantation Society, which organized the Hong Kong meeting, said at a press conference that “he had told Chinese presenters at the Thursday session that their country’s decades-long practice of using the organs of executed prisoners had horrified the rest of the world,” according to the NY Times article, “Chinese Claim That World Accepts Its Organ Transplant System Is Rebutted.”

Over the past decade, several independent investigations have provided compelling evidence that China's boom in transplantation surgeries is built upon the forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience, the majority of whom are Falun Gong practitioners.

The NY Times reported:

“'It is important that you understand that the global community is appalled by the practices that the Chinese have adhered to in the past,' Dr. O’Connell said he told them.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Dr. O’Connell said that 'no one could interpret” what he said to the Chinese representatives as meaning that their system was “truly accepted by the Transplantation Society.'

'So they may say that, but that’s not what the truth is,' he added.”

Former president of The Transplantation Society, Dr. Jeremy Chapman, said that a paper presented at the conference may have violated the society's rules that no organs from executed prisoners be used in research.

According to the NY Times article, the author of the paper is Zheng Shusen, a transplant surgeon at Zhejiang University.

Dr. Chapman said that he has urged the Chinese government representatives at the meeting to investigate this case.

If it turns out that the authors did violate the rule, Dr. Chapman said: “Then they will be named and shamed, and they will be excluded from our meetings forever — and from publication in transplantation journals.”

Zheng Shusen, 66, is one of the most experienced liver transplant surgeons in China. According to the state-run media publication, Guangmingwang, and the China Association for Science and Technology, Zheng has conducted 1,850 liver transplants up to March 2016.

Webpage cache of the interview of Zheng Shusen by the Guangmingwang, in which Zheng said he has done 1,850 liver transplants.

According to an article published on Zhongxinwang, another state-run media, on January 10, 2016, Zheng is leading a several-hundred-member team at the First Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang University Medical School, which is able to conduct 200 liver transplants every year.

It is noteworthy that Zheng is the chair of the Provincial Anti-Cult Association in Zhejiang Province. One of the major functions of this state-run association in the last two decades has been to aid the persecution of Falun Gong. Zheng himself has been actively involved in slandering and vilifying Falun Gong. He was the chief editor of a book published in 2009 that defames Falun Gong.