Although multiple cities across China have recently banned vaping and smoking in public areas, smoking unfortunately has long been a prevalent practice in society. As of 2016, the World Health Organization states that there are approximately 315 million smokers in the country, which is nearly a third of the adult population.
Dr. Chen Jingyu, a well-known lung transplant expert from Wuxi People’s Hospital in Jiangsu province uploaded a video on Weibo on November 15 of doctors extracting the organs from a 52-year-old man who had passed away from multiple lung diseases. The stills from the video reveal charcoal-colored lungs as a result of 30 years of chain-smoking.
Although the patient signed up to have his organs donated after death and initial oxygenation index tests were approved, medics quickly realized they would not be able to use the organs after extraction. This comes as a loss, as China has a very short supply of organ donors.
Dr. Chen remarked, “The patient didn’t undergo a CT scan before his death. He was declared brain-dead, and his lungs were donated shortly after that.” He continues, “We Chinese love smoking. It would be impractical to say that we wouldn’t accept the lungs of all smokers, but there are strict standards... lungs from people under 60 years of age who have only recently died, minor infections in the lungs and relatively clean X-rays are also acceptable. If the above conditions are met, we would consider transplanting the lungs,” as cited by Daily Mail.
Watch as surgeons examine the black lungs, viewer discretion is advised (VPN off):
Dr. Chen captioned the video, “Look at these lungs, do you still have the courage to smoke?” The video quickly racked up over 12 million views, and netizens unanimously weighed in, saying that this is arguably the best advertisement for people to quit smoking.
READ MORE: Chinese Authorities Seek to Halt Online E-cigarette Sales
[Screengrab: cover image via QQ]
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