[jsalcedo]

US army blows up donated bodies


Donated bodies are considered vital for medical training
Seven corpses donated to America's Tulane University ended up being sold to the army and blown up in land-mine tests, university officials said.
They said the Louisiana university paid a firm that distributes corpses less than $1,000 per body after its medical school had more than it needed.

Officials thought the bodies were going to other medical schools that needed corpses for their classes.

But the firm, National Anatomical Service, sold the bodies to the army.


The revelation comes days after two men were arrested on the West Coast on suspicion of illegally selling off bodies donated to the medical school at the University of California at Los Angeles.

'Regulated but uncomfortable'

Tulane gets up to 150 bodies a year but needs only up to 45 for classes, Mary Bitner Anderson, co-director of the medical school's Willed Body Programme, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.


The New Orleans-based university said it found out about what happened to the seven bodies in January 2003.

It suspended its contract with the New York-based National Anatomical Service last month.

Chuck Dasey, a spokesman for the Army's Medical Research and Materiel Command in Fort Detrick, Maryland, said the army had been sold the seven corpses for between $25,000 and $30,000.

The bodies were blown up in tests on protective footwear against land-mines in Texas.

"There is a legitimate need for medical research and cadavers are one of the models that help medical researchers find out valuable information," Mr Dasey was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

"Our position is that it is a regulated process. Obviously it makes some people uncomfortable," he added.

Military researchers have been using cadavers for years in different projects, many of which involve explosive devices.

But some experts said the military's use is questionable as donors did not expect their loved one end up being blown up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3501766.stm

[Langenator]

Seven corpses donated to America's Tulane University ended up being sold to the army and blown up in land-mine tests, university officials said.

See, that quote is misleading. The Army wasn't testing land mines. They were testing gear to protect soldiers from land mines. And the only way to really know how well the gear works is to put it on a body, then detonate a mine.

Those cadavers were helping save the lives/limbs of our soldiers. What's the problem with that?

[c_yeager]

Perfecly legitimate use of donated cadavers. Why does anyone have a problem with this? ESPECIALLY people in the medical field who know damn well what this kind of testing entails. I mean THEY are going to be dissecting them like frogs and tossing them in the garbage. How is that any better?

If i had a mind to donate my corpse to science i would RATHER it go to testing out some kind of life saving device than go to some college kids anatomy class.

[Hkmp5sd]

At least they didn't go and make their own cadavers to use in the test.:rolleyes:

[Feanaro]

Some people can be so wimpy. They cancel a contract because seven cadavers were used in a test to save lives? It's not like we need the friggin' bodies and the original owners certainly don't.

[tiberius]

How many American solders may this testing save? Sounds like legitimate testing to me, just a lot of anti-military spin from the author.

[Firethorn]

While the charging both sides for the cadavers seems a bit strange, a little like the grease companies, they were used for safety testing, not landmine testing.

You're 50% more likely to keep your foot with this footwear if you step on a landmine type stuff. It'd be like testing the safety a new bulletproof vest against a rifle round. You know it's going to penetrate, but the question is whether the wearer would be better off with or without the vest.

[Carlos]

I'm with c.yeager.

[migoi]

who has it in his will that all possible pieces of the shell I leave behind when I cross over will be put to good use my response to reading this story was: cool, I wonder if I can arrange a specific purpose like that for my body when it is donated.

I fail to see what the "news" is in this story. How is this testing any different than the donated body being dissected or used on the 'body farm' for analysis of how bodies decay under different cirucumstances? Both programs are meant to ultimately save lives. I tend to agree with the above posters...this seems to be an anti-military article with little real news value meant to shock the readers and create a negative mindset.

migoi

[Logan5]

I think the "news" part is that Tulane looks pretty stupid. Someone donates a body they don't need, and so Tulane pays a company about $1000 per corpse to take them and resell them for $30k a pop? Isn't that just absolutely pissing money away?
National Anatomical Service was really soaking them, it looks like.

[Carnitas]

Given the choice I'd rather rather get dismembered by a land mine than a med student.

[jsalcedo]

Heck, in some countries they just take their women, children and political prisoners, march them through a minefield. to hell with the boots

[Navy joe]

Saw one study where a university down south took some donated bodies, dressed them in normal street clothes and left them out in the woods at various times of the year. The point was to determine at what time after death maggots of particular fly species showed up on the corpse.

I guess it's a good thing you don't know what happens to you when you are dead.

[c_yeager]

If what happened after your dead was of great concern you wouldnt be donating your body in the first place.

The funny part about all of this is that a lot of medical cadavers are imported from countries without a cultural stigma concerning dead bodies. (hindu and budhist countries consider the body a mear shell of no significance one the 'soul' has left it) and they pay VERY close to NOTHING for them.

[Preacherman]

I think the issue is not with the donors, but with their surviving relatives. They might not like the idea, but they've grown accustomed to the fact that Grandma and Grandpa have willed their bodies to "medical research", or something like that. They envision a tall, dark, handsome med student carefully and reverently dissecting their grandparents, disposing of the remains in a suitably funereal urn, and attending the cremation service when it's all over. To find out that instead, their grandparents have been blown to smithereens in the Texas desert, is a bit of a "culture shock" for them, poor dears! :D

Speaking of medical research: there was a heck of a stink in Cape Town, South Africa, in the early '70's. A drug company representative, female, young and rather attractive, had parked her car outside the offices of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cape Town. She'd gone inside for an appointment, and come out to find her car wouldn't start. She tried to push it backward out of the parking bay, so as to roll it down the hill, but wasn't strong enough. Well, she noticed some young men in white coats looking at her out of the window of what she assumed was a classroom (it was actually the anatomy lab - read, dissection room). She called out to them "Won't some of you give me a hand?" Next thing you knew, a human hand was thrown out of the window, landing right next to her. She shrieked and fainted, and this got plastered all over the newspapers, with comments in high dudgeon from the families of those whose bodies had been donated, and who felt that this was a gross misuse of "medical research" latitude... :D

[The_Antibubba]

The problem is one of intent. These people willed their bodies to medical schools, where students would learn first hand how to "First, do no harm". The students and faculty are, these days, taught to treat these cadavers reverently, as if they were living patients, and to appreciate the gift of someone's body. At the university I attended, decades ago, cadaverous remains, when there was no longer any useful material in them, was interred in a small cemetary on campus, just for that use, with a memorial service. Remember, med students used to rob graves for cadavers.

There are several repugnant ideas involved here:

1. The buying and selling of corpses. OK, maybe it is just a shell to you, but that does not make it an object of commerce.

2. Not everybody who supports the use of their corpse for medical research would support it for military research. You and I might say that it is still to save lives. But most donors have very specific instructions about how bodies are to be used, and how they are to be treated. Do you think the US Army is being as respectful of the remains as my alma mater? If someone wants to donate their body to the Army for field testing, great! Let's get the paperwork rolling. But it would be nice to know that the govt isn't yanking me around even after I'm dead! :D

3. So Tulane has an oversupply of cadavers? NOT FOR LONG. When word of this hits the mainstream (when Jay Leno adds it to the monologue), donations will drop off sharply. Of everything-cadavers, organs, even blood. Americans, and especially Christians, have some fundamental issues about being buried "whole and intact". Healthy people die everyday, but hundreds of thousands still wait years for organs that just get buried.


This is carelessness in action.






Besides, isn't the testing boots in minefields what The Marines are for? :evil: :neener:

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm signed up to have my head frozen when I die... Ok, now I know where to will my body to. It's not like they'll care that the head is missing! :D

[Navy joe]

Besides, isn't the testing of boots in minefields what The Marines are for?

Joke or not, that's pretty tasteless. Plenty of THR members have had to walk in landmine country or have children out doing it now. I'm sure they all like their feet where they are.

More tasteless than Preach's story which is absolutely hilarious. Heck, I'd probably toss the hand out there.

[Bigjake]

good story, preacherman!

I'm on the "so what" side of this argument. if i had to do choose what would be done with my body when i croaked right now, that would be it. why not let it be used for a test that will help save grunts lives?

[The_Antibubba]

The problem is one of intent. These people willed their bodies to medical schools, where students would learn first hand how to "First, do no harm". The students and faculty are, these days, taught to treat these cadavers reverently, as if they were living patients, and to appreciate the gift of someone's body. At the university I attended, decades ago, cadaverous remains, when there was no longer any useful material in them, was interred in a small cemetary on campus, just for that use, with a memorial service.

There are several repugnant ideas involved here:

1. The buying and selling of corpses. OK, maybe it is just a shell to you, but that does not make it an object of commerce. In the days when med students had to rob graves to obtain cadavers, there was a thriving black market. All that has changed is legality, but not the attitude towards it.

2. Not everybody who supports the use of their corpse for medical research would support it for military research. You and I might say that it is still to save lives. But most donors have very specific instructions about how bodies are to be used, and how they are to be treated. Do you think the US Army is being as respectful of the remains as my alma mater? If someone wants to donate their body to the Army for field testing, great! Let's get the paperwork rolling. But it would be nice to know that the govt isn't yanking me around even after I'm dead! :D

3. So Tulane has an oversupply of cadavers? NOT FOR LONG. When word of this hits the mainstream (when Jay Leno adds it to the monologue), donations will drop off sharply. Of everything-cadavers, organs, even blood. Americans, and especially Christians, have some fundamental issues about being buried "whole and intact". Healthy people die everyday, but hundreds of thousands still wait years for organs that just get buried.


This is carelessness in action.






Besides, isn't the testing of boots in minefields what The Marines are for? :evil: :neener:

[The_Antibubba]

Tried to post right when THR goes into maint at night.

And yes, I knew someone would object to the Marines comment. I never said I had any discretion. FWIW, I love the Marines!!!

[Balog]

Americans, and especially Christians, have some fundamental issues about being buried "whole and intact".

Please don't project your own neuroses onto "American Christians." Most of the people I go to church with are organ donors. As far as I know no major denomination has being buried "whole and intact" as an important theological point.