- WASHINGTON -- Bodies donated
to a university medical school were sold to the army who then blew them
up in tests involving land mines, escalating the controversy over the unregulated
use of human body parts.
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- Tulane University in New Orleans said it had suspended
a contract with the New York-based company it paid to distribute surplus
body parts. The university receives up to 150 donated bodies a year but
only uses up to 45 for its own classes: it thought the remainder were being
passed on to other medical schools.
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- But National Anatomical Service (Nas), the distribution
company, sold seven of the bodies to the army for up to $30,000 (£16,700).
Chuck Dasey, a spokesman for the Army Medical Research and Material Command
in Fort Detrick, Maryland, said the bodies were blown up in tests on protective
footwear against land mines. He said: "There is a legitimate need
for medical research, and cadavers are one of the models that help medical
researchers find out valuable information."
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- The trade in body parts has come under scrutiny since
two men, including the head of the Willed Body Programme at the University
of California at Los Angeles, were arrested at the weekend for allegedly
trafficking in stolen body parts. It is illegal to make a profit from selling
body parts; a regulation that distributors get around by charging only
for labour costs and transportation.
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- The Pentagon has long bought cadavers to use in research
involving explosive devices and has been one of the biggest buyers in the
largely unregulated trade. But few people who agree to donate their bodies
or those of their deceased relatives realise they will end up being used
in such tests.
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- Michael Meyer, the professor of philosophy at Santa Clara
University in California, who has written about the ethics of donated bodies,
said: "Imagine if your mother had said all her life that she wanted
her body to be used for science, and then her body was used to test land
mines. There are some moral problems with deception here."
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- Tulane University said it found out about the Army's
use of the bodies in January 2003 but it did not suspend its contract with
Nas until this month.
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- John Scalia, the chief executive of Nas, told the New
Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper that, after the army finished using the
bodies, the remains were gathered and then cremated. The ashes were returned
to the university.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=500326
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