Organ-Harvesting Report Wins Prize

Despite U.S. opposition, Spain plans to give its top journalism prize to a newspaper report on claims that Latin American children were being killed for organ transplants in the United States and Europe.

King Juan Carlos is to award the prize Monday to Brazil’s Correio Brasilense newspaper for its 1995 story on alleged trafficking in the organs of murdered children.

U.S. officials said the allegation is untrue, and has been repeatedly debunked since it began circulating in 1987. And the Spanish government was given material disproving the story, including a United Nations report.

U.S. officials fear the allegations put Americans in danger. In 1994, the State Department warned tourists away from Guatemala, after organ transplant rumors inspired mob attacks on American women.