The Real Body Snatchers

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?"

Comments

Attention teenage single mothers

[Malevolent Tester]

Want to own your own home instead of leeching one off the taxpayer? Apply inside. $250,000 could be yours.

I don't get the big deal....

[webmaster404]

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.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[smooth wombat]

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

The issue isn't that your body parts shouldn't be used to help someone else, the issue is that these folks were simply taking the parts, or the entire body, without the permission of either the deceased or their families. Essentially, they were grave robbers without the grave.

It comes down to consent. Think of it as an extended form or Opt-in. Unless you specifically say you want your parts to go to someone else, they stay with you.

Then of course there are the whole host of religious issues which don't need to be discussed but should be mentioned in relation to the above reason.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[Rob the Bold]

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.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[zwei2stein]

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.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[Applekid]

Thankfully, I've spent many years building a resistance to such attacks by being grossly overweight with liver disease, diabetes, hypertension, and hyperactive sweat glands.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[evanbd]

There are plenty of uses that aren't transplants -- various medical research, and especially training of new doctors. Working with real cadavers is still important; you can't learn everything from books and you don't want to start on live patients for everything. How much those applications care about freezing is beyond me (I'm not a doctor), but I'm guessing it varies between "not at all" and "somewhat, but not nearly as much as transplants."

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[ajcham]

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.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[darkmeridian]

The grave robbers in this case stole parts from people who died of hepatitus, HIV, and other highly-contagious and deadly diseases. Setting aside concern for the family of the dead; think about the living who receive bone implants from an AIDS victim.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[Telvin_3d]

Actually, bodies do have rights. We have a lot of emotion tied up in these bags of meat that carry us around. Depending on the jurisdiction and country and what have you there is usually a law or two with names like 'inappropriate disposal of a body' or 'improper treatment of human remains' or, in this case, 'mutilating a dead body'. Mostly the laws get used to stop people form burying their relatives in the back yard or wherever.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[Shajenko42]

Carve me up and part me out. As long as it isn't before my time, I'm totally fine with that.

The bolded part is what worries me. As far as I'm concerned, as soon as I close my eyes for the last time the entire universe will cease to exist. But if a doctor who is responsible for saving my life is thinking anywhere in his mind, "There's a kid in Tennesee who could really use this guy's liver" and decides not to try so hard to keep me alive, I'm going to do whatever I can to keep that from happening even if it means my organs go to waste.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[flyingsquid]

And since money's involved, who's to say the parts they're selling are transplant quality.

Transplant quality? Of course it's transplant quality! Here at Honest Ed's Used Body Parts, all our parts are transplant quality! Take this pelvis for instance, almost good as new. Belonged to a little old lady who only used it to walk to church on Sundays. What? Yeah, I suppose that could be a little osteoporosis there, but I'll have the boys in the shop fix that right up. Put a couple of titanium pins in and it's good as new. Listen, if it's such a big problem, I can even throw in a couple of ears to sweeten the deal, maybe a lung.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[sm62704]

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

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[LunaticTippy]

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.

Re:I don't get the big deal....

[stranger_to_himself]

I work in neuropathology and we always need more brains to work on. I'm guessing you're in the UK, so you could look up the 'brain bank' at the IOP in London and find out how to donate. Some people prefer to donate their brain rather than their body because then relatives still get to bury you within a reasonable time.

Niven was right.

[AltGrendel]

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.

Re:Niven was right.

[CRCulver]

On the other hand, Niven did foresee an end to organlegging with the rise of alloplasty ("gadgets instead of organs"). Of course, in Niven's timeline that only happened in A Gift from Earth (republished in Three Books of Known Space IIRC), after hundreds of years of murders for organs, but we're already seeing exciting reports in tech news of progress in artificial parts, so maybe the barbarity of e.g. China's treatment of prisoners will pass fairly soon.

Re:Niven was right.

[Detritus]

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.

When does the government get involved?

[CRCulver]

In his Gil "The Arm" Hamilton stories (collected in Flatlander ) Larry Niven speculated that once organ transplants were common, the government would end up making everything, even jaywalking, merit the death penalty to insure a good supply of organs. China has already started using organs from executed prisoners, how long before it spreads to India and even the West?

Re:When does the government get involved?

[polar red]

over my dead body !

Hmm

[TheLink]

How much is my left little finger worth?

Don't get the wrong idea, I'm quite attached to it.

So you'll have to prise it from my cold dead hands (or over my dead body)...

Oh wait...

They are trading bears?

[zappepcs]

"The BBC are reporting on a grisly trade lying behind the booming business for replacement body parts in medical procedures. According to Colbert, the number one threat to America is BEARS! These biological terrorists need to be stopped before the American Dollar is ruined.... oh wait

George Carlin was right, someonelse too

[MrShaggy]

'Thats why I dont sign my doner card. When you get into an accident and the abulance comes, and they see you have that card. Do you honestly think they are there to help you?? Hell no, they are looking for spare parts.' Or even better. knock.knock: Door opens. "Yes, can I help you??" 'Are yu such and such' 'Yes I am'. "We're here for you liver." ;)

Remembering Alistair Cooke

[seven of five]

This happened to Alistair Cooke's body.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistair_Cooke#Later_Life_and_Death

Sure sure...

[keineobachtubersie]

"My cousin went to school with a guy that this happened to."

Are you sure it wasn't your cousin's mother's sister's uncle?

Shhhh.....

[cdr_data]

PLEASE don't tell my wife!

Oblig. Futurama

[Dachannien]

Fry: Now that you mention it, I do have trouble breathing underwater sometimes. I'll take the gills.
Shady organ dealer: Yes, gills. Then, uh, you don't need lungs anymore, is right?
Fry: Can't imagine why I would.
Shady organ dealer: Lie down on table. I take lungs now, gills come next week.

Re:You think it's no big deal

[kalirion]

You forgot to mention that he woke up in a tub full of ice.

Imagine if *you* had the right to sell your corpse

[TrebleJunkie]

Yup, you're worth a lot of money dead. To everyone but you. Imagine if _you_ had the right to decide to sell your corpse for a profit, the good you could do: You could leave that money to your family, donate it to charities. You could also do wonders to eliminate the organ donor waiting list -- if, presumably, you could directly sell your organs to folks willing to pay for them.

Re:You think it's no big deal

[Applekid]

It is officially now a race to produce a link to Snopes discussing kidney thieves.

Oh, thanks a lot...

[the_fat_kid]

Now I have to change my will.

Let's see:
Organ donor card? check.
Sunday NY times? check.
1994 jeep cherokee? check.
road map of my nations capitol with dump sites marked? check.

All right, I'm ready for the end, when it comes.

"I'm not affraid of dieing. Ijust don't want to be there when it happens."

They can have my body

[maroberts]

As long as my head can be kept alive in a jar....

Re:You think it's no big deal

[eln]

Oh man, tell me about it. My aunt's second cousin's dog's sister's father's owner's grandmother's great grand-niece's former roomate was kidnapped by aliens, but then the aliens were spaceship-jacked by a bunch of street thugs before they could even get the anal probe in all the way. She was taken to a secluded shack in Montana where Jimmy Hoffa came out with a rusty scalpel and a copy of "Home Surgery for Dummies". Luckily, a Sasquatch riding on a Chupacabra broke in just in the nick of time and took her off to his treehouse high up in the Rockies. After a few months, though, he kicked her out because apparently she was supposed to be paying half of the rent or something, and she ended up wandering around the forest for several days until she passed out. Anyway, she came to in a back-alley surgery, and there was a big guy in dirty scrubs negotiating with the zombie Jeffrey Dahmer over who got what part of her body. Luckily, she managed to break free, but as soon as she got out the door she was picked up by federal agents who flew her off to Area 51 in a black helicopter and locked her in a closet with some freaky squid looking thing from some planet in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri (or so he claimed). He was just setting out the silverware so he could devour her in a more civilized fashion when a bunch of those weird guys who like to look at Area 51 all day with binoculars in order to find government conspiracies broke in and whisked her off. Unfortunately, they were short on meth and had no cash, but they did have the phone number for the Harvard Medical School, so they knocked her out, and she came to a few days later in the middle of the 405 freeway in a tub of ice.

Anyway, to make a long story short, she was missing three fingers, her left kneecap, three and a half yards of small intestine, three quarters of her right lung, and her spleen. Really scary stuff.

Fantastic book about uses for dead bodies

[smellsofbikes]

"Stiff" by Mary Roach. Goes into extensive detail about just how many uses dead bodies have. A few: forensics (letting them decay and recording what sorts of insects colonize them and when, which gives immense amounts of data to people who are trying to analyze time-of-death, also covered extensively in "A Fly For The Prosecution" by Madison Goff, and other books.
Safety testing: putting corpses in cars and crashing them gives much better results on skull fractures and such than Buster The Dummy. Likewise, dropping corpses in elevators or off buildings into safety nets, or measuring the protective qualities of bullet-proof jackets. It's hard to get good results using pigs.

(I saw Mary Roach read from this book one time, and it was creepy, not because of her and the book, but because just about everyone in the audience ended up asking really detailed, scary questions about treatment of dead bodies, since apparently most of them had experience in the subject.)