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The Real Body Snatchers

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the something-macabre-for-your-morning dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC are reporting on a grisly trade lying behind the booming business for replacement body parts in medical procedures. Many unscrupulous "dealers" will procure body parts from anyone willing to deal them — e.g., undertakers, medics — and will process them for resale onto legitimate companies. Apparently a fully processed cadaver can fetch up to $250,000. Now, who says I'm worth more alive than dead?"

13 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. I don't get the big deal.... by webmaster404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I honestly don't get the big deal with this. Now myself I am religious, but when I'm dead. I'm dead. And unless we figure out how to freeze people then revive them, this doesn't seem like a big deal. You get your grave for people to remember you, and your organs are put to good use. Seems like a fair trade to me.

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    1. Re:I don't get the big deal.... by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I honestly don't get the big deal with this.

      I did RTFA, so the big deal isn't the sale or use of bodies or their parts per se, but the fraudulent and criminal means by which they are obtained.

      One example given was the crematorium owner in California who charged a woman for the cremation of her son. He gave her an urn of furnace scrapings and turned around and sold the parts of the man's body, keeping the unsold inventory in freezers in the attic of the funeral home. That's fraud. One could argue that it doesn't really matter whose cremains you receive, but it's still fraud even if you don't know you're being duped. Actually, it's fraud especially if you don't know you've been duped.

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    2. Re:I don't get the big deal.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The thing is that it apparently isn't always done with your consent, or that of your family. For example, you die and you're sent to a crematorium which gets paid to cremate you, but in reality, they keep your body (or parts of it, at least) and sell it for profit, all the while claiming that they did cremate you and getting paid for that, too.

      Whether your body SHOULD be owned by you or your relatives after your death or whether it should be legally possible to use it for research etc. is another matter, but these cases involve lying, contract violations, and fraud.

    3. Re:I don't get the big deal.... by zwei2stein · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Big deal is medics they are dealing with: if dead person is worth up to 250 000 $, how hard would you really work to keep them alive?

      Hell, some could have idea of killing of healthy (aka, only minor issue like broken leg) patients to get body with top quality organs (people who get organ-preserving damage done to body like broken legs are generally healthy+active life types with bodies in good shape.). And medic can easily get untraceable kill. Embolism is bitch.

      And imagine if common thugs could cash you in too ... you would be walking quater million for them. Some kill for 100$, its quite imaginable them to kill for much, much more.

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    4. Re:I don't get the big deal.... by sm62704 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We have structured our health care system to provide care to everyone

      You must not live in the US, I'm guessing Canada. Here the poor have no health care, and many middle class people have no health care either because they can't afford the insurance premiums. Since the poor can't go to a doctor and fix a problem when it's small, their only health care is the emergency room. Lack of mental health care causes massive homelessness for crazy people who could be treated and become productive members of society.

      Debt collectors for doctors hound you just as hard here as credit card companies. Doctors and nurses do it for the money - the dentist I had when young (he's long since died) said that when he was in college he decided on dentistry when his wife ran up huge dental bills.

      America is a land whose inhabitants worship the almighty dollar to the exclusion of everything else, where husband and wife work and strangers raise their children in day care centers, since the money is more important than their own kids (My ex stayed home, but we were the exception). Money here is even more important than life, liberty, love, and friendship. Money is seen to equal happiness.

      It is a land of plenty, but it is an impoverished nation when one considers the things that really matter. Because of the national religion of mammon worship (mammon worshipers who mostly consider themselves Christian) we are not very damned likely to ever get universal health care like the civilized world has.

      My best friend's name was Jim Dawson. I knew him since I was a teenager. His employer didn't offer health insurance, and he contracted appendicitis. When his appendix burst he was rushed to the hospital for surgery, and his credit was ruined as he struggled to pay off his medical debt. He knew something was wrong with him, but wasn't about to put his family through the hell they had gone through at the hands of the bill collectors.

      He died of a heart attack in 1992, two weeks short of his 40th birthday. Had health care been available to him he would be alive today.

      My country's method of paying for health care is nothing short of barbaric. I hope Jim's ghost haunts all of you who oppose universal health care.

      -mcgrew

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    5. Re:I don't get the big deal.... by operagost · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Here the poor have no health care
      Not true at all. I'm sorry about your friend, but I think he may have had some options if he'd looked into them. If he thought something was wrong with him, he could have gone to clinics where an exam with a GP (which would be a start towards cancer detection) would have been free or nearly free.

      It is a land of plenty, but it is an impoverished nation when one considers the things that really matter. Because of the national religion of mammon worship (mammon worshipers who mostly consider themselves Christian) we are not very damned likely to ever get universal health care like the civilized world has.
      Please don't twist scripture. It says nothing in there about taking other people's money to pay for these programs. If you wish to pay for others' health care out of your own pocket, you can give it to them directly or contribute to charities like Ronald McDonald House or various hospitals who do treat people who are unable to pay.
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    6. Re:I don't get the big deal.... by mcmonkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Having watched the BBC documentary, the bigger issue is that of the use of diseased or otherwise unsuitable bodies. For instance one guy they spoke to contracted Hepatitis from an illegally supplied transplant.

      Spot on. Consent isn't really an issue in my mind. If the body didn't sign an organ donor card while alive, you can always get consent post-mortem. "If you have any reservations about me taking your organs, please let me know. What? No objections? Alright then." [Sound of chainsaw starting.]

      The real issues are quality control. Did the donor have any diseases or parisites that could be passed through donation? If there are requirements such as matching blood type, is the donation properly labeled? Is the thing even from a human?

      And perhaps the most startling question, was the donor dead (other than being killed by the act of donation)? There are enough ethical questions regarding the line between life and death before the added temptation to help folks cross that line.

    7. Re:I don't get the big deal.... by LunaticTippy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are absolutely wrong.

      I lost my job in the tech bust, lost my health care, nearly lost my house. It only took 8 months of unemployment to do that. Could happen to anyone. I didn't qualify for any free health care. I looked into it extensively. I got bronchitis which developed into pneumonia from lack of care, I ended up with several thousand dollars owed to the hospital and permanent lung damage.

      I paid my premiums for 20 years, never got sick, and the one time I needed health care it wasn't there for me through no fault of my own. Now I can't buy insurance at all since I have a pre-existing condition. For me, and millions of other Americans, the system is broken.

      I can't believe it's legal for insurance companies to take premiums from healthy people and then refuse coverage when you start to need it.

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    8. Re:I don't get the big deal.... by robertjw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Freshness

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    9. Re:I don't get the big deal.... by rkowen · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Sure, I feel sorry for you, but you could have used the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) to continue your group health care (at your own expense). Therefore, you made a choice and unfortunately you gambled and got bit by the consequences.

      Now you're griping because some other insurance company doesn't want to pick up a pre-existing condition. Why should they? It was your choice not to have health insurance. They're under no obligation. Would you buy a used car or house with serious problems? No, so why expect someone else pay the cost for your own choice.

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    10. Re:I don't get the big deal.... by Shajenko42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I can't control the law. I can control what the option under "Organ Donor" says on my driver's license.

  2. Niven was right. by AltGrendel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Organleggers will exist until we develop proper organ cloning. The moral dilemma over cloning and stem cell research will hamper any progress in this area and allow the organleggers to continue, much like the drug trade has.

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    1. Re:Niven was right. by Detritus · · Score: 4, Insightful
      But it would be better if we could stop wasting resources on treating old sick people and start using them to treat young people with a future ahead of them.

      That should be a permanent entry in your medical records.

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