COLLAPSE
You might have heard not too long ago about a caseinvolving a New Jersey company called Biomedical Tissue Services,which was accused of selling processed body parts from stolencadavers. Bone and tissue from some of these bodies turned up inJoplin, Missouri, and were used in surgeries performed recently inboth of our local hospitals. They have of course turned up in manyother places also.
The body parts processing industry is a largely unknown but verylucrative –and usually legal – industry that takes tissue, bone,tendons, ligaments, heart valves, corneas, and various other bodyparts, processes them, and turns them into products that can beused in various kinds of surgery. Some 20,000 bodies are “processed” in this way in the U.S. each year. Typically, a familywill consent to the donation, and the body is then taken by anon-profit body harvesting foundation. This foundation then passesthe body on to various specialized companies for a token price, andthese companies then harvest the different body parts, and processand sell them to medical supply companies, which then sell them tohospitals. Every one makes a profit in these transactions exceptthe donor and the donor’s family. It is estimated that a singledonor body can generate the raw material for products that sell forup to a total of $220,000.00. If vital organs are included, thebody might generate up to a $1,000,000.00 worth of products. Theethical dilemma I would like you to discuss here concerns thequestion of whether families of donors should be paid for bodyparts donations? Is it fair that others make a handsome profit fromthe sale of body parts, but those who “donate” them don’t? If youthink people or their families should be paid when they donate, doyou feel the same way about vital organs like hearts, lungs,kidneys, etc.?
For your information – and at risk of making this posting overlylong – here is some more information about what body parts can bedonated and how they are used. Cadaver skin is used both for burnvictims and in cosmetic surgery, and skin from a single donor canbe turned into product that can be sold for several tens ofthousands of dollars. Tendons and ligaments are of course used inknee and joint surgery and they can cost patients thousands ofdollars each. Corneas can fetch $2400.00 per pair. A heart valvecosts around $7000.00. One catalogue lists 650 body parts productsthat can be purchased. Separate bones are harvested, and bones arealso fashioned into various sizes and shapes, and ground down topowder form and used in bone paste, screws, wedges, and putty.Products are typically freeze dried or frozen so that they canremain useable for up to five years after harvesting.
U.S. law requires that body parts be harvested only from donorswho have signed consent forms. There is also rigorous medicaltesting that is required, including screening for HIV, Hepatitus Band C, and syphilis. Needless to say, none of this testing was doneon the cadavers stolen by Biomedical Tissue Services. This companyis now out of business and its former owner, Michael Mastromarino,is in jail. Surely, we all agree that what Mastromarino’s companydid was wrong, but what do you think of the larger question? Whencompanies make hundreds of thousands of dollars from donated bodyparts, is it fair that the donors and their families getnothing?
