Japanese criminals got transplants at UCLA

LOS ANGELES, May 30 (UPI) -- A Japanese gang boss and three other Japanese criminals legally barred from the United States received liver transplants at UCLA Medical Center, police said.

The transplants were performed between 2000 and 2004, a time of organ scarcity, the Los Angeles Times reported, and the surgeon was Ronald W. Busuttil, executive chairman of UCLA's surgery department.

U.S. transplant rules don't bar hospitals from performing transplants on foreign patients or patients with criminal records.

The most prominent recipient, Tadamasa Goto, is barred from entering the United States because of his criminal history, officials said. At the time of his transplant, the FBI helped Goto enter the United States in exchange for leads on possible U.S. criminal activity by Japanese gangs.

Oklahoma Bioethics Center's Dr. Mark Fox said UCLA's transplants may lead to pressure to end transplants for foreign nationals.

"For some people, there are misgivings for transplanting foreign nationals at all. For some people, there are misgivings about transplanting criminals at all," Fox told the Times. "When you put those two together, it is certainly reasonable to expect that a certain portion of the population would say, 'This is not what I expected when I signed my donor card.'"