UCLA Yakuza Transplants
By John Amato Monday Jun 02, 2008 4:50pmI love Asian Yakuza movies. Heck, I love a lot of the J-horror flicks too, but I never thought I'd see this in real life. Hello, DHS---where the hell were you?
UCLA Medical Center and its most accomplished liver surgeon provided a life-saving transplant to one of Japan's most powerful gang bosses, law enforcement sources told The Times.
In addition, the surgeon performed liver transplants at UCLA on three other men who are now barred from entering the United States because of their criminal records or suspected affiliation with Japanese organized crime groups, said a knowledgeable law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The four surgeries were done between 2000 and 2004 at a time of pronounced organ scarcity. In each of those years, more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the Greater Los Angeles region...read on
You have got to read this story. It's a Pulitzer Prize winner....I have used the UCLA medical group in the past. Damn, if I would have produced a samurai sword when I checked in---who knows what kind of treatment I might have received.
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UCLA's processes for evaluating a patient -- both for mental and physical suitability for organ transplants -- are the same regardless of whether the individual is a U.S. citizen or a foreign national," the statement said.
Oh I have no doubt about that. If you've got plenty of money, you get the best care going. If not, you can go Cheney yourself.
wtf is that about? if he had been an african dictator would you have said spears?
It pays to be the criminal elite.
[Deleted. Off topic. Link it in an open thread and it's not so objectionable. Not saying that I don't give you props for creativity...but, again, open thread. Thanks. Site Monitor]
Maybe the DHS didn't investigate because the gangsters weren't Arab-looking? No, that's a joke.
You know, the Yakuza contributed to Japan's bubble bursting by working with corrupt politicians to drive up land prices. This is why Phil Gramm scares me so much.
The Yakuza are Japanese. I don't know what kind of "asian" Yakuza movies you are watching. Perhaps it was at the same theater showing those european mafia movies.
[sigh]
Oh I get it, yeah, the Samurai sword joke, hah, because you know, they are Japanese and Samurai are Japanese. Very funny.
Maybe your basic transplants are safer here, where only the spinach and now tomatoes are poisonous.
Mobsters and gangsters are difficult to argue with. They have the money and power and it's either their way or the highway. Much like the gang of thugs now residing in and around the white house.
It's all about the green backs John. Isn't this the time period when Walter Payton died?
Geeee, got anything a tad more recent?? This article appeared in the L.A. Times last week.
Can we please stop allowing reality to copy bad action and horror movies, please?
#7 hit the nail on the head.
Jeez, John's trying to introduce a little levity here. Lighten up, folks!
Weren't the Democrats gonna, like, nominate someone for President today?
Must be a slow news and commentary day. This is stale.
So some of you morons are angry at the mention of a samurai sword, well heaven forfend your delicate sensiblities. In case you missed the ACTUAL point of the article, organized crime leaders were flown into the U.S. and treated, seemingly without any notice whatsoever of our so called Depratment of Homeland Security, which seems to have the ability to only secure more tax dollars for itself.
I just read about this on Boing Boing a good while ago.
A lot of people don't know this, but as we entered the deep freeze of the cold war after WWII, US authorities were worried about communism, but they didn't want US troops to be seen putting down demonstrations and protests.
So they used the yakuza as muscle. But the fashion of good predators, the gangsters used the opportunity to get their meathooks deep into the system, bribing and blackmailing and terrorizing the politicians and bureaucrats.
And that, as they say, was that.
This one is really crazy.
Widespread @ 17:
Considering that the U.S. helped rebuild the Sicilian mafia after WWII in order to help crush the Communist-led dock strikes in Marseilles in France, and that Sicily and all of Italy have had to pay for our repeated strategy of hiring thugs and warlords to carry out our establishment's policies.
bk @ 2:
Are there any kick-ass African action films where they use kick-ass spears?
i see the pc police are out in force today
Geno @ 9:
And it appeaered on my monitor about 5 minutes ago. And I'm glad it did.
Not all of us read the LA Times every day, ya know.
You shouldn't like Yakuza movies. No one should like violent movies. If you like violent movies, you are condoning real-life violence.
John, I assume you like Takashi Miike's Kuroshakai(Black Society)Trilogy ?
The story reminds me of the first one in the series.
Maldoror @ 23:
Balls. If that were true, reading "My Pet Goat" would make you stupid.........oh, um....
"The four surgeries were done between 2000 and 2004 at a time of pronounced organ scarcity. In each of those years, more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the Greater Los Angeles region"
The surgeon also performed many hundreds of transplants in the same period which also saved human lives. Since there is no law against performing surgery on foreigners, and if they go through the same screening as American patients, what is the problem here?
If these Japanese were not eligible for surgery, then I have a problem with it. If they were eligible, and higher on the list of potential liver recipients, then they should have gotten the operation.
I have yet to see anything that says that these guys were chosen over more eligible patients.
Well folks, you know what they say about money talks and bullshit walks.. That includes mob money... Even foreign mob money.... UCLA should be ashamed of this episode.. But they probably aren't.... To borrow a quote from mister Floyd, most likely 'they're so happy they can hardly count'... Their mob money...
Jesus, this transplant business is getting to be such a racket. Overall, this situation examplifies why, even though it might be a tragedy for someone, even though it's not a very nice or humanitarian position to take, I'll likely not be signing any organ donation cards. Given how it's all being managed, I'll just take my organs to the grave with me.
Given this incident and given the proclivities of the mob, who knows how many recognized organ donors might end up in an involuntary donating situation against their will becuase they have a healty something or other that someone else with money wants, or the desparate scenario of being forced to donate over financial issues.. Apparently happens with some regularity in China already.
Given our current mutated market capatalism system, ya gotta wonder how long till something like that becomes the hidden norm right here, or even if its not already happening... Given my obviously cynical view on this matter, I'll cede to the fact if I need one and can't get it, that's just the breaks... In the interests of full disclosure, I am not against the idea of organ donation perse... I just don't have any faith in the process or system of organ procurement as it currently exists... And this shit is just one reason why......JD
post transplant @ 26:
Jesus H. Christ, transplant, did you get the jar named a b normal? READ the damned article.
I’ll just take my organs to the grave with me.
Wow. There's a much greater likelyhood that your organs would go to someone who deserves to have their life saved. There are 500 pediatric xplants and between 3-5,000 adult xplants each year. Thousands more die because of a lack of donated organs. I think that a couple of screw ups by UCLA is not enough reason to deny hope to the many folks whose lives you might save. In your cynicism, you are willing to risk the chance that you might need one and not get one, but what if your daughter or wife needed one?
Jesus H. Christ, transplant, did you get the jar named a b normal? READ the damned article.
I did. What exactly are you disputing?
What a load of ignorant hype-whoring.
Their job is to treat the patient. Yes, will the bill be paid matters. It isn't exactly free to do this. But among the litany of screening procedures is not a "socially acceptability" test. It isn't their job to screen the patient's background.
The people who died waiting for their transplants most likely were not tissue matches for the livers that came available, so that comparison is worse than useless, it is misleading.
When I was a resident there, we treated a lot of illegal aliens, too. I don't see anyone on here bitching about that. There was also a lot of effort put into getting assistance for indigent American patients.
Andy K Jong Il @ 20:
Shaka Zulu, King Solomons Mine A couple off the top of my head
What the hell is going on at UCLA? The sell body parts from cadavers, and auction off liver transplants to the highest bidder. Those Bruins have no morals.
UCLA is one of the five elite hospitals in the US where our leaders and the world's leaders get their medical care.
UCLA, LA
Mount Sinai, NYC
Mass General, Boston
Mayo Clinic, Minneapolis
Johns Hopkins, DC
Investigate them all, then. What did the dictators who go to Mayo give in exchange for their surgeries?
Peter @ 5:
bk @ 2:
The finger cutting, a ritual form of penance practiced by Yakuza is directly related to sword handling. The first digit removed as penance to a boss is the top digit of the little finger, as it has less use in sword play than the index, middle and ring fingers.
Before you climb up someone's arse implying bigotry, do a little research. I mean I assume the both of you can make it to the library and check out a book, since using a search engine and the internet didn't occur to you.
Jon,
The reason homeland security did nothing is because the FBI aided Goto in getting a passport in exchange for information.
He provided nothing of substance. I imagine that Mr. Goto is now working on getting that second liver pickled while laughing at the FBI(ncompetence).
miss_kitty @ 32:
Surely you can't overlook this classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGW-IHtmM1E
A great riff on the LA Times article. If you read the article I wrote about Goto's liver transplant and yakuza influence, that was in the Washington Post on May 11th (on the net May 9th), it explains why DHS (which didn't exist then--pre 911) didn't catch these yakuza going into the country. The National Police Agency, which is the chief law enforcement agency in Japan, does not share information on yakuza with the feds--out of "privacy concerns."
The Washington Post article is here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09/AR200805...
On my incredibly amateurish web-site, I posted my translation of a police file on Goto Tadamasa. It's old, issued on November 1st, 1999 but it gives a good overview of the organization and the tactics it uses to terrorize people. It also offers some insight into Goto's personality.
Try www.japansubculture.com
or www.the-other-side-of-the-sun.com
Universal health care has to start somewhere. Screw the kids. First start with the rich,dictators and mob bosses and let it trickle on down.
Miss Kitty,
Prior to WW2, I would have bought into to the sword play thing. However, these days, the cutting of the finger is more of a social punishment, in my opinion.
Having a missing digit in Japan (especially a pinky) carries a very strong social stigma and can get you banned from classy restaurants, hot spring resorts (as can tattoos) and expensive hotels.
Not only that, very few people, even within the yakuza have access to and/or knowledge of how to use a shinken.
If gang members can bring the parts needed for transplant from rival gang members, do they get a discount?
Pick-a-
PartOrgan?Jake@38,
Fantastic read. Thanks for the links and more detailed information. My prayers go out to you and your family.
bk:
Yakuza still carry around samurai swords, since guns are pretty much banned in Japan, so his comment wasn't culturally offensive.
no mention of the junior mint that helped stave of the infection; what kind of rag is this?
posttransplant@29;
To answer your question, frankly if that scenario happened, I'd change my mind and help them IF I were a match. There is an exception to prove every rule so they say, and you just hit on one here. I still basically have no faith in the situation overall as it currently exists. It is ripe for abuse even if we haven't seen or heard of widespread examples here yet. But, without outraging the entire successful transplant community, which I am happy to see living as a result of successful transplant surgeries, I want to posit a question...
What if stem cells derived not from embryos, but from some aspect of ourselves could be successfully developed... I've heard of but don't know how true it is, that there is research ongoing playing around with harvesting stem cells from skin.. That's almost too good to be believable but I like the implications. What if this stem cell technology could be developed in a manner that allowed, for instance, new livers grown in a petri dish from stem cells harvested from our own bodies? I wonder what that might do to a black market in internal organs??? I wonder what kind of positive effect that would have for people needing organ replacement.
I'd be willing to buy into that idea and throw down my tax dollars and other personal private donations if I saw the medical/science community get serious about that kind of medical investigation/breakthru. Then noone would have to worry about taking their organs to the grave or donating them upon death....What say you to an idea like that Posttransplant???? JD
Money talks. Just ask the Saudis who were able to fly out of the USA after 9/11 when nobody else could fly. Money talks. Lots and lots of money means the laws don't quite apply to you, you get to cut ahead in line, and you get away with murder.
Tequila @ 43:
Yakuza still carry around samurai swords, since guns are pretty much banned in Japan, so his comment wasn't culturally offensive.
Hahahaha... aaah, I remember being very close to some Yakuza violence was when I was in Tokyo and a guy got shot to death five minutes from where I was staying. And no, it wasn't by a Samurai sword.
Saying there is no gun violence in Japan is like saying there is no gun violence in England. That's bullshiznit. There is a sizable amount of firearms in Japan being brought in by Isrealis inside Tuna fish. Spend a night in Roppongi at the right club and you can learn a whole lot more.
Miss Kitty, thank you for your amazing history lesson, but #40 gets it right. My original point was John's sad use of a racial stereotype as a joke. Which I didn't find funny.
This also doesn't mean I don't understand the original point behind the post. As has been underlined by various comments already, it's a sad state of things we live in.
First the life-long alcoholic Mickey Mantle, now Japanese organized crime? Money sure does talk.
Tim in Japan @ 40:
It's true, the finger cutting thing is out. 指詰め (yubizume). Although, in 2003, I saw a member of the Kobayashi-kai slice up a member of the Nakano-kai on a street corner of Roppongi and it was really quite impressive. The Nakano-kai (now disbanded) had set up an illegal casino in Sumiyoshikai-Kobayashikai turf and this was not appreciated. I don't know what a real sword fight would look like because the Nakanokai guy didn't have a sword.
Tim in Japan @ 42:
My pleasure. I notice that there's a lot of debate about whether the yakuza use guns in Japan. They do. The yakuza have guns. The head of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Tsukasa Shinobu, is in jail because his bodyguards carry guns. I went to the Fuji Hotel (?) near Tokyo station when a yakuza boss got gunned down there and there were lots of shots fired in the turf war between the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Kobayashikai last year. Not to mention the mayor of Nagasaki being shot to death by a disgruntled yakuza.
When the yakuza want to kill someone and make it look like a brawl/mugging gone bad--they stab their victim, usually with a cheap knife which is thrown away. Shooting an enemy with a gun is tantamount to saying "this was a yakuza killing."
They are also adept at faking suicides and since only about 1 to 5% of suspicious deaths in Japan result in an autopsy (the figures might be higher)by a medical examiner--those "suicides" often go unchallenged.
The death of Noguchi, an executive with Live Door group. who allegedly killed himself improbably by stabbing himself in the stomach multiple times in a capsule hotel and then calling for help---is probably a classic case of yakuza "assisted suicide."
I think it's safe to say that in general when yakuza just want to kill someone--they stab them or snatch them off the streets and kill them then bury the body in a cement foundation. (They own lots of construction companies). When they want the world to know that the victim was killed by the yakuza, they shoot them. I'm sure that in The Yakuza Big Book of Etiquette that more detailend criteria are given for choosing weapons of homicide and dismemberment but I think in general those two principals hold true.
The other less common approach is to kidnap a friend, lover of child of their enemy and then threaten to kill/rape/mutilate that loved one unless the victim kills themself. For more on reprisal methods, see Goto's file.
Peter: I'm sure there is gun violence in Japan and the U.K., but probably only a fraction of the violence in the U.S.
Jake,
Again, thanks for the info. I guess I'm pretty lucky. To my knowledge, I've only had 3 run-ins with yaks in my stay here and 2 of them were actually quite pleasant (once a couple of yaks, by virtue of their tats, cleared out a pool in Minami Boso and the other one occurred when I stumbled into a snack in Isawa, near Kofu, and ended up getting free drinks for me and my friend by telling them I thought their "irizumi" were cool).
Anyway, when I get home from work, I plan on shooting you an email. I'd love to talk to you more on the subject as I have a good friend whose myoji is Goto and whose father runs a construction company.
Talk to you later.
Jack Damage @ 28:
Personally, you can't tell me that celebrities couldn't get preferential treatment on the organ transplant list. One of the stories about this which continues to make me madder than the proverbial wet hen to this day -- and I'm saying this as a Yankees fan -- is the one about Mickey Mantle. Now it's by no means a secret that Mantle's alcoholism was part of the reason why he needed a liver transplant -- he also apparently had hepatitis C, which may have contributed to his liver cancer. In any case, the fact is that Mantle 's cancer was diagnosed on May 28 of 1995 and that he received a transplant less than two weeks later on June 8 of 1995. Now perhaps the possibility can't be entirely ruled out that a good match just happened to appear out of nowhere against all conceivable odds at just the right time...but considering how long some people wait for a transplant, it's just as likely if not even more likely that Mantle's fame (and money?) shot him to the top of the list.
Barely two months after the transplant, Mantle was dead. Why? Because the doctors had apparently somehow failed to detect that Mantle's cancer had metastasized to other organs -- even though it was reported at the time that fifty percent of such cancers have already done so by the time they are detected and many such patients are denied transplant as a result due to the poor prognosis. To all appearances, Mantle received preferential treatment in order to get a transplant in spite of the fact that the odds were even at best that he would live much longer after the transplant. In my honest opinion, that liver should have gone to someone else -- someone else who quite possibly may have died because they didn't have the clout that Mantle had and couldn't get their name moved up the list.
StirFry @ 25:
Sweet! Another human being who is aware of the godlike awesomeness that is Takashi Miike! It's good to know there is another bright soul out there.
And as for my post at #55, I should have replaced "history book" with "literature on contemporary trends and scientific opinions in ethnosociology". Sorry, my bad for all you anal-retentive types out there (apparently, from what I've perused so far, there are a lot of you at these forums)!
Peter @ 48:
There's a lot of people that don't seem to understand the original point behind the post. People are saying, "I've been to Japan. You don't know Japan". It's a fucking film reference. Read John's first sentence (with my improved link):
"I love Asian Yakuza movies".
Now there's a whole new wave of Asian films influenced by these Japanese films, and you can easily find Yakuza films featuring Samurai swords (Ichi the Killer). If an ignorance of both classic and modern Japanese cinema is bad enough, how could one not even in passing know about the multitude of western films, western films that feature Yakuza and samurai swords (Kill Bill, Black Rain).
Sydney Pollack isn't even cold yet.
The Yakuza
Goto wasn't some random Japanese guy who John insulted with a stereotypical comment. What he said was based on a genre of movies started by Japanese filmmakers. Inferring someone is a racist when you don't know your shit is idiotic. It's time to reshuffle your Netflix queue.
DHSmd @ 32:
My thoughts exactly. If I remember correctly, ethnicity can play a big part in transplant matches, not because you can't put a "white" organ in someone that's not right, but because different ethnic groups have specific tissue type issues that can rarely be matched outside of their ethnic group. Unless those 100 people that died in the LA area all happened to be ethnic Japanese, the odds are slim that they were passed over for any reason other than a poor tissue match.
Why are so many people getting all bent out of shape at UCLA? Neither they nor the doctors knew about the alleged criminal ties of the liver recipients - it says that specifically in the article. And I'm fairly certain that no one really wants their doctor or hospital to start performing criminal background checks as a condition of treatment. The outrage should be at Homeland Security, or at INS, or at any of the government agencies that are supposed to prevent people like Goto from entering the country in the first place. If Goto had been barred from entering the U.S. in the first place, he wouldn't have been on the transplant list, would he?
Another great day to be a Bruin . . . between this, the medical records peakers, and the organ sales a few years ago, you'd think there must be some 'SC grads running the med center . . .
bk @ 2:
It's still ok in this country to bash Asians. Everyone knows the quiet, obedient little Asian is not going to make a stink about it. SNL can do skits that make Asians look like idiots, MAD TV does it...you can look anywhere in the media and see Asians being belittled.
You can't say a thing about Muslims or Blacks, but it's still ok to make fun of anyone with an Asian accent, and to mock them in any way they think is going to get a laugh.
Can you even IMAGINE the backlash if the article actually WERE about an African leader and the word 'spear' were used?
CindyLouWho @ 59:
exactly. look, this site is a daily destination and i think john and the crew do a fantastic job, but the joke he made was an easy stereotype that most asians are tired of.
miss kitty, i'm sorry that youve never been kissed. keep hope alive.
keep up the great work john.
CindyLouWho @ 59:
If people are going to misinterpret what John blogs about, I wonder why even have a blog at all (See my post at #56). Does anybody read for content? Anybody that feels that he slighted a Japanese mobster for his heritage is ridiculous, especially when the movie genre he referenced was wholly invented by the same race of people he's accused of slighting.
This happens from time to time. The only thing that makes this worth mentioning is that it was the Christofascist terrorist State that stepped in and made the decisions for the Medical Center. The fascist Bush regime called the shots this time around though often in the past it's been about which patient had the most money.
Another Example: David Crosby. Destroyed his liver with years of drug and alchohol abuse on the road. Money, fame,Hmmmm.....
Dnurse
Oh, and Larry Hagman,too...
Dnurse
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