Sade and colleagues 1 Sade R.M. Carpenter A.J. D’Amico T.A. et al. Unethical studies on transplantation in cardiothoracic surgery journals. Ann Thorac Surg. 2021; 112: 1746-1752https://doi.org/10.1016/j.athoracsur.2021.07.070 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar ,2 Sade R.M. Carpenter A.J. D’Amico T.A. et al. Unethical studies on transplantation in cardiothoracic surgery journals. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2021; 162: 1647-1653https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtcvs.2021.07.061 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (3) Google Scholar copublished an article titled “Unethical Studies on Transplantation in Cardiothoracic Surgery Journals” in the 2 most respected journals in the field of cardiothoracic surgery. Subsequently, we collected some feedback from a group of cardiothoracic transplant surgeons in China. The immediate response from these colleagues was actually a simple question: “Should scientific journals become political battlefields?” Unethical Studies on Transplantation in Cardiothoracic Surgery JournalsThe Annals of Thoracic SurgeryVol. 112Issue 6PreviewExecuted prisoners have been a source of organs for transplantation in several countries; for example, Taiwan, Singapore, and China.1 Taiwan and Singapore have long since stopped the practice, but China has not. Taking organs by coercive methods has been documented in some countries, such as India and Egypt,2 but unlike China, this practice is illegal and subject to criminal prosecution in those jurisdictions. Full-Text PDF China’s Opaque Wall of SecrecyThe Annals of Thoracic SurgeryVol. 115Issue 4PreviewWe are grateful to Dong and colleagues1 for addressing several issues in our paper on the Chinese transplant system.2 We appreciate that many Chinese thoracic transplant surgeons want to make their system better, as we stated in our paper: “One of the most unfortunate consequences of the ongoing use of executed prisoner organs is the damage to the international reputations and standings of those transplant surgeons in China who are dedicated to high ethical standards in their practices and are making vigorous and honest efforts to establish a transparent and trustworthy system.” We have no reason to doubt that this statement describes the authors of the present letter, but also understand the motivation for Chinese thoracic transplant surgeons to present their system in the best light, highlighting organ donations in their country as transparent, fair, and traceable, despite the direct and indirect evidence to the contrary from the several scholarly sources that we cited. Full-Text PDF