The ban on selling human livers, hearts, kidneys and other goodies from China is only a heartbeat away.

China will ban the sale of human organs and issue new guidelines for transplant operations after reports that patients from Japan and Malaysia died of complications from transplants performed in China.

The guidelines, which were issued on the Ministry of Health’s Web site and take effect July 1, also require that transplant donors give written permission.

A shortage of available organs for transplants in China, whose population is 1.3 billion, may motivate the sale of organs on the black market. Less than one percent of the 2 million Chinese in need of transplants are able to undergo the operations because of a shortage of donations, the state-owned People’s Daily newspaper reported. The Web site statement, posted yesterday, didn’t detail current regulations.

China’s foreign ministry today acknowledged that foreigners have traveled to China to have organ transplants and said China has received criticism for taking organs from executed criminals, which the foreign ministry called “a slander” to the country’s judicial system. Organs are taken from executed convicts following strict guidelines, it said.

“Such applications are very insignificant in number,” said foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang in a regular press briefing today in Beijing. “Such cases are no different than a patient who is about to die, who donates his or her organs. The same rules apply.”

Except no one seems to know what those rules are. My guess is nothing will change very much and organs will still be available to the highest bidder.