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Organs of UK Nuclear Workers Secretly Harvested; Energy Secretary Apologizes
fernlyn writes with word of a report detailing a decades-long practice of clandestine post-mortem organ removal from the bodies of dozens of workers in the UK's nuclear energy industry; Britain's Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has apologized to the families of those workers whose organs were taken without consent or even acknowledgement. Many of the organs taken were removed without any apparent forensic purpose in mind. Surviving relatives are understandably upset with what they see as cavalier treatment of their loved ones' bodies (even beyond unauthorized organ removal), such as the replacement of bones with lengths of broomstick.
A dead body is only an empty shell(Klingon Death Ritual)
Do not underestimate the power of the Dark side
Anyone who has been remotely connected with the British civil service will understand that, unlike even the United States in an increasingly dwindling number of areas, there is no real sense of government serving the people. The government exists to manage the unwashed masses and knows what is good for you, even while every individual understands that the government is really serving itself. This notion of nanny leadership is even woven into the undergraduate experience at Oxford, where the nation's managers are bred (and probably Cambridge too): if you have any sense of egalitarianism, it is repulsive but difficult to ignore.
It makes a difference to a lot of people.
Have you ever seen what they do to bodies in an autopsy?
No sig today...
Property rights.
Your body is your most important piece of property. If the government can just go around "cavalierly" doing whatever it wants with your body, how can one say that they live in a just society?
were replaced with lengths of broomstick?
See also: national service.
It is rude.
It makes no difference when your dead if your organs are in a jar, cremated, or rotting in the earth.
Cool; so when someone close to you dies they wont mind if I come along and urinate on their body before the funeral? Given what you just wrote you wont object to that right?
It's about the living; and respect; doofus.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
you're dismembering people's corpses for no good fucking reason
stay classy, britain
the dead cannot own property.
http://www.SachaWheeler.com
I agree with this. Allright, I'm sure relatives will be angry for some reason...
But the dead person didn't mind, he's not going to need his body anymore - and its not like anyone is going to use it.
"How dare you take the organs out, they deserve to rot in the dirt"
or
"How dare you take the organs out, we need them to burn them alight and scatter their ashes".
Still pointless - at least SOME good came from them.
Under the same argument, what more is life than a bucket of chemicals ?
You may not value the dead, but some do. It is part of their identity and some respect is due.
You may cry when your mother dies and then dump her body into the rubish bin, but others may not want to.
Actually in the bible it specifies that as much as possible and as intact as possible of the body has to be buried.
For that reason when there is a suicide attack in israel you see orthodox jews arrive to gather all bits of the victims to ensure compliance to the 'law of god'.
And there are certain christian wings that either used to adhere or still do adhere to that biblical stipulation.
But many christian forgot all about it though.
But even when not religious it's a freaking asshole thing to do and unlawful to boot, and there is the question why they would remove organs and bones and then destroy them, from workers in nuclear facilities.. you do the math.
It's one thing to not care what happens to your own body after death or to not hold any religious dogma to ones demise, it's another thing entirely to not respect anothers religious beliefs or desires. I often read how Christians and other religions are full of zealots that push their beliefs on others but I see just as many Atheists call them idiots for believing such things. Basically, I see the same pushing and forcing from both sides and it's disrespect regardless from which camp it comes from. I believe in a prime mover for a couple reasons, mostly cause i think it's nieve to believe that just because I cant perceive something with my 5 senses that it doesn't exist. I also believe that with technology comes the ability to perceive things we as a human race couldn't before. Germs are a good example of this. The other reason comes from the premise that mathematics was a discovery more than an invention. There was an invention by us humans within the concept of math, but that invention was the use of symbols to quantify something that inherently exists in the universe. I expect to be reamed by those who've been burned by religious constructs. Just remember, religion as an organization was a human invention that's run by humans and we're all flawed in some way therefore so are our creations. So how is it that the underlying principles that allow math to exist as a concept isn't flawed? Sure the concepts WE determine that exist within it can be, but that's OUR perception in practice..and we're flawed...
For those who haven't, go to youtube, search autopsy, should be the first hit with 7 mil views.
As for the article, why do people still have any trust left in the goverment, it seems their purpose is to tax the ass of the people while at the same time violating their trust in all possible manners. And then they expect to get away by just going "oops sorry guys!". And often they do.
Yeah but crying about it & asking for 'sorry' changes nothing. The families involved should just sue their government for damages. That way any time a public servant steps on citizens' rights (and gets caught), there would be a significant pricetag attached. For a government that's low on funds, that might be a lot harder to ignore than a pile of damaging news reports.
And when possible those responsible should be kicked out of their jobs, perhaps even out of their profession.
"Cool; so when someone close to you dies they wont mind if I come along and urinate on their body before the funeral?"
Not really. They're dead, why would I care?
"It's about the living; and respect; doofus."
The dead don't need their bodies any longer. If the living object, well, simply remind them they're talking about a dead body.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
How dare the organs be used for anything other than rotting in the ground!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
"but others may not want to."
No, they'd rather the body rot in the ground (or be burnt), making it completely useless to absolutely everything.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Property rights.
Your body is your most important piece of property. If the government can just go around "cavalierly" doing whatever it wants with your body, how can one say that they live in a just society?
But these people are dead. If I'm dead, and the government removes organs from my body, then they're not violating MY rights, simply because *I* don't exist anymore. (You may disagree if you believe in the concept of an immortal soul, of course.)
There are certain protections that the living enjoy that should indeed be extended to the dead. For example, libel and slander are illegal when the victim is alive, but they should also be illegal for the recently-deceased (for a different reason: the point there is not to protect the person, but to protect society from falsehoods and lies.)
I actually agree that this is not acceptable on the part of the government, but "they can't take my organs because my organs belong to me" doesn't hold water if you're dead.
And I think that intent matters, too: for example, if the government had said "we need these organs because there's a shortage of donor organs, because people in hospitals are dying due to the lack of new kidneys, livers, hearts etc.", and if the government had been open about this... would it have been unacceptable, too? I think not; respecting the religious feelings of a dead guy is less important in my book than allowing someone else to live who would otherwise have died.
It makes no difference when your dead if your organs are in a jar, cremated, or rotting in the earth.
Cool; so when someone close to you dies they wont mind if I come along and urinate on their body before the funeral? Given what you just wrote you wont object to that right?
It's about the living; and respect; doofus.
As long as you don't make a mess that needs to be cleaned up.
Only three things are certain in life. Death, taxes, and getting your organs harvested by the government.
"Cool; so when someone close to you dies they wont mind if I come along and urinate on their body before the funeral?"
Not really. They're dead, why would I care?
I'm willing to guess you either have never experienced real loss, or have an inability to feel empathy. That, or you're trolling.
.: Max Romantschuk
Organs and bones are harvested (and bones replaced by lengths of broomstick or pvc pipe). Due care is taken for these organs and they're being used to save lives, which is arguably better than just throwing them away.
The dark side of the whole thing is that a corpse is worth roughly GBP 200k-300k in spare parts, so ethics are out of the window and organs are harvested without the consent of the deceased nor those who stayed behind.
As usual, money is the driving factor here, so there is something you can do to stop this practice if you have objections to it: Sign up as organ donor. If there are enough organ donors, the law of supply and demand will take care of the rest and make sure this practice is no longer profitable, so it will cease to exist.
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None of the above. It just doesn't make sense to care so much about a dead body. You should care more about the memories of the person, not the body that they can no longer use. Especially since all their body is going to be doing is rotting in the ground or getting burnt when they could be used for something useful (which apparently wasn't the case here).
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
"Cool; so when someone close to you dies they wont mind if I come along and urinate on their body before the funeral?"
Not really. They're dead, why would I care?
I'm willing to guess you either have never experienced real loss, or have an inability to feel empathy. That, or you're trolling.
It will be an affirmation of my beliefs. You will have to pay your own airfair though
Yes, because a lump of dead meat deserves respect. I won't object to you urinating on my corpse, my relatives however may.
The thought of people who would rather have bodies rot in the ground or be burnt into ashes than be used for something that could potentially help others (which I know wasn't the case here) is also funny.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
It makes no difference when your dead if your organs are in a jar, cremated, or rotting in the earth.
Maybe it makes no difference to you when you are dead, but a whole lot of people in this world have quite strong feelings about the right way to treat a persons body once they are deceased, and rational or not, those feelings are very real and should be respected.
To take what you said to the ridiculous, if one of your kids died and the doctor cut them into pieces, removed the contents of their head, and used it like a puppet, would you be upset? I would be, and upset is putting it very lightly.
It's not useless. It's biomass. It will return to the earth, as food and fertilizer. Once the overpriced casket rots, anyway.
The argument that property rights transcend death requires the supposition that (a) it is the soul that is the human person rather than the body and (b) the human soul survives the death of the body.
There are other latent assumptions in there as well, such as the body being property of any sort. But, for the present discussion, I think the presupposition of imortality is the most interesting.
"Cool; so when someone close to you dies they wont mind if I come along and urinate on their body before the funeral?"
Not really. They're dead, why would I care?
With all due respect, I believe you are being dishonest for the sake of argumentation. Feelings towards loved ones don't just magically disappear at the moment of death.
Unless you don't have any feelings to begin with, which is still a possibility. By being a psychopath, for instance.
Circle of life, dude, think of the worms.
They just forgot to metion they are doing this for a good cause. The self esteem fund for girls!
Cool; so when someone close to you dies they wont mind if I come along and urinate on their body before the funeral? Given what you just wrote you wont object to that right?
Just let me say now that if you want to pee on me when I'm dead, I won't care.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The summary makes us think that "Many of the organs taken were removed without any apparent forensic purpose in mind."; In fact, "The organs were examined at Sellafield as part of research into the health effects of work in the industry"
As much as it was a cabal of ghoulish bodysnatchers with God complexes who thought they were above the law. You know, typical medics. 99.5% of them give the rest a bad name.
And I re-iterate my position: if criminal acts were performed, individuals should be prosecuted. If the relatives are going to sue anyone for anything (what? emotional distress?) then it should be the individuals, not the State. The State doesn't care if it has to rob Peter a bit more to hush up Paul.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
From TFA:
Ironically, had they been properly informed some would have agreed to the removal and analysis of the organs.
I would say yes, iIf someone asked me: "We think that staring at a computer screen reading Slashdot all day might be unhealthy. Would you mind if we grab a few of your organs when you die? This might lead us to better protection for Slashdot readers in the future." Harvesting organs without permission is just plain rude, crude and uncalled for. It's just not cricket; whatever happened to the image of the polite English gentleman?
Maybe they didn't ask because they were afraid that it would scare workers away, because of health safety concerns? But if the UK nuclear industry had doubts about health safety, the workers should have been informed about that, as well.
What other shenanigans are going on, which haven't been discovered yet . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
actually that's my fetish.... can you do it to me now?
To the families of those who were to be cremated I advise asking for a discount on the grounds that the bodies had been "pre burned "and therefore created a smaller carbon footprint . For other forms of body disposal I have no advise.
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
"Actually in the bible it specifies that as much as possible and as intact as possible of the body has to be buried."
If you would point out where the bible says this, I'd be much obliged.
On a completely unrelated subject did you hear that the Soylent Corporation will soon be introducing a new product called Soylent Green?
The superstitious are funnier.
While that's all true, if I leave instructions to do X with my body, I'd like to think those instructions would be followed after I'm dead, and that the body won't be used for other purposes without a very good reason. It's my body. I specify what should happen to it. And after I'm dead I assume that my family inherits the right to control what happens to it and hopefully will do their best to follow those instructions -- within practical limits.
For me there aren't a lot of emotions tied up in the issue. It's not a religious issue. I've already indicated my body should be donated to the local university's medical department for use in their medical training program after I'm dead. Somebody may as well get some use out of it when I don't need it anymore. The point is: it's *my* decision to make.
If I was in the UK and any of my family had been subjected to this I'd be outraged too. It would be as if the government broke into my house and stole something. On the other had, had I been asked, I probably would have agreed to it if it looked like a real scientific study would be done. For me, the "fuss" is entirely over the failure to ask permission to do any of this. I mean, sheesh, this is the government stealing bits of the one piece of property that I am born with.
Wait, were you talking about medics, lawyers, or politicians there?
Judging from your name, you don't mind if someone pees on you while you're alive, either.
being all logical doesn't quite work with mourning people. Correction being all logical does not work with humans, emotions tend to mess everything up.
This is a fallacious argument. The real question should be "When you die, would you mind if someone came along and urinated on your body?".
I certainly wouldn't, if all that's left for my body is to rot in the ground. Now, if I had other plans for my body after death, then I would mind. Not that dead people are in a position to object.
It's not the rights of the previous owner (they're dead, what do they care?), but whether the rights are inherited by next-of-kin.
My property goes to my heirs at my death. My body is my property. Stealing bits of my body is stealing from my heirs. No mystical crap required.
If the government chooses to take my body at time of death then it's a tax or confiscation of property from the heirs but the government generally has to disclose taxes or confiscations.
Empathy is for the living. Feeling empathy for a dead body makes no more sense than feeling empathy for a rock - both have the same level of experience. A cadaver is just a blob of matter that formerly housed a consciousness. It's no more important than the clothes the person wore or the house they lived in.
I've had close friends die, and I treasure their memories, but I have no superstitious respect for their bodies. The important part of them is the consciousness, soul, or software, or however you choose to describe it, and that's no longer resident in their bodies.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Feelings towards loved ones don't just magically disappear at the moment of death
So? Feelings for a person and feelings for their body are very different things. As I said in another post, I've had close friends die and I agree that the feelings that you have towards them don't just vanish, but transferring those feelings to an inanimate lump of dead flesh seems pretty sick to me. Those feelings belong to the memory of the person, not to the body that they left behind.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I won't pretend to speak for the GP, but I feel I should point out that a loved one and a corpse are different things. If you really believe that the person you loved is gone when they die, there is no real reason to have feelings about the shell left behind.
If the dead voted, they would be able to own property.
"His name was James Damore."
"With all due respect, I believe you are being dishonest for the sake of argumentation."
Nope.
"Feelings towards loved ones don't just magically disappear at the moment of death."
I never said that they did. You should, however, care more about the memories of the person than the persons dead body which they will no longer have a use for. If it could be used to help others rather than just rot in the ground or be burnt into ashes, why not (again, I know that this wasn't the case here)? There's no sense to this.
"Unless you don't have any feelings to begin with, which is still a possibility. By being a psychopath, for instance."
I suppose being different is always a possibility, but I don't really fit into this criteria.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
If you believe in the concept of an immortal soul, then at that point you arn't using your body any more - so it doesn't really matter that much anyway. Body - Soul = Meat.
The very fact that the government doesn't just openly say "your organs become state property on your death" (and save hundreds of lives of people on transplant lists every year) should demonstrate that, despite your own feelings, there are sufficient people in society who disagree with you to prevent this happening. My own personal feeling is that if you can do some good for someone else after your death, why not, but I also respect other people's opinions differ.
I do have rather strong feelings about the rotting corpse stinking up my dining room.
Or: How about harvesting the Secretaries' liver, Monty Python style?
Nice use of the word 'harvesting' to set the mood.
Unless specified otherwise, in Belgium each person is a donor of his body parts after he or she dies.
Next of kin do not have to be forewarned that some or even all of the body is used as donor, but sometimes are.
So all bodies are 'harvested' by default.
I personally do not care what happens to my body after I died. It's not my problem anymore. Let people who care at that moment do whatever they feel will help them to mourn or celebrate.
I do like the 'harvest by default' idea, as long as it easy to opt out AND if opting out would mean that you would opt out of receiving any donor organ as well. You will NOT be placed on any list. This would give people who ARE willing to be donor a better chance of receiving in case of need.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
When did we start excusing governments and other authority figures from law? The US president is ordered to hand over emails, and he apologizes and "loses" them. The Catholic church is accused of covering up years of sexual child abuse, and the Pope apologizes. The British government steals organs and desecrates corpses, and someone apologizes.
How about giving these people the same consequences as if it was one of us "normal" people doing these acts? Are you trying to imply that we wouldn't have the full weight of the law fall on us? Are you saying we could get away with just saying "I'm sorry?". This has to stop, it's the path to despotism.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You should, however, care more about the memories of the person than the persons dead body which they will no longer have a use for
Unless, of course, by your twisty trolling logic, those memories include the memory of their body being desecrated?
There is a reason why people here are associating your attitudes with sociopathic behaviour.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
If the dead voted, they would be able to own property.
Apparently you never heard of Chicago politics.
I don't give a fuck what they do to my body when I'm dead. But the UK government should ask for permission. This is a very sensitive issue to a lot of people.
I wonder what's wrong with the UK. I'm used to see the Brits as very smug for having such an organised and productive society based on merit. But your government and private organisations seem to completely fuck up in a regular basis like it's some 3rd world country. WTF?
[...]the organs taken were removed without any apparent forensic purpose in mind[...]
Dunno, sounds to me they weren't helping anybody with that...
Dude, you don't need to go al libertarian on this. Some governments fuck up really bad, some are better, some work really well. It's just like any organisation made by man, be it public or private.
Strangely, it's the Anglo-Saxon countries, those of "small goverment", "individualism", "self-initiative", etc. that have the most control-freak, paranoid and incompetent governments in the developed world.
how sad, human body should be respected at all times. http://www.lifestand.com/
Well then where do internment arrangements and contracts come into play in your scenerio? We pre-plan for our deaths and certain assumptions are made when we make arrangements to be interned. One of those is that when we are buried, it is with all of our parts (that are available of course). How do company or government rights trump that?
What?! I thought these things only happen in EVIL China??? Seems like China is just playing catch up to the western world, again.
Where is the live organ donation sketch? Oh wait he actually checked it off on a card in that sketch. I find this area of the law (dealing with dead people) to be exceedingly odd.
This is true, and personally I would give anyone anything I am no longer using in the way of body parts after death, but respect should be given to someones wishes. And what about the families? This is devastating to certain belief systems. Where do their rights come in?
Actually in the bible it specifies that as much as possible and as intact as possible of the body has to be buried.
[citation needed]
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Wow, what a concept. Demonstrate how much your soul doesn't need your body by donating your heart.....right now. When you're done, you won't be needing your body any more, so it won't really matter that much anyway. While you're at it, maybe you can arrange for a necrophiliac to take what's left of your carcass home with him.....after all, it doesn't really matter that much.....next-of-kin be damned.
"Lame" - Galaxar
"(which I know wasn't the case here)"
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
"Unless, of course, by your twisty trolling logic"
Not "trolling logic," just logic. I'd just rather see the body of someone dead (which means that they no longer need their body) put to better use than just rotting in the ground or being turned into ashes, if possible.
"There is a reason why people here are associating your attitudes with sociopathic behaviour."
Besides the fact that they apparently don't know what that or "trolling" means?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
"Some governments fuck up really bad"
If "some" in this sentence means "all," then yes. The entire world is in a very sad state of affairs, but not because of this.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
The term harvesting when applied to organs usually refers to them being transplanted into other people (who may be paying for them) However this does not seem to be the case here. If you needed a new organ, would you want one that used to be in a nuclear plant worker?
If you pissed in the casket without us SEEING and SMELLING it, then the casket being buried, and it turns out later you indeed pissed in it, I would not care. You are welcome to do it on a rotten piece of meat. My mother once dead will be the summation of all memory I have from her, not the corpse.
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I won't pretend to speak for the GP, but I feel I should point out that a loved one and a corpse are different things. If you really believe that the person you loved is gone when they die, there is no real reason to have feelings about the shell left behind.
And what you are saying (both of you & the GP), has only the appearance of logic.
If you truly believe that a loved one is gone, then that "shell" is about only concrete in-flesh thing left of him/her. It has his/her face & his/her body.
Saying that you don't have any feelings for that shell is bizarre.
Doesn't a photograph of your gone loved one spark any emotion? But a photograph & the actual person it represents are two completely different things. And a dead body of a person who just died is more tangible than that photograph.
Any and all property rights of an individual end when they die.
People need to get over the idea that there's anything left of someone after they die. It's not healthy.
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"How dare you take the organs out, they were supposed to feed the worms".
There may not be a good logical rationale to keep a dead body intact, but there are religious reasons.
For a religious person, a deceased body desecrated might mean a deceased soul spending eternity in hell as opposed to heaven. Which, in their believes, would be a very negative emotional situation.
I'm not religious, like many others on Slashdot, but that does not mean we get to decide how religious people should feel or what they should believe in, just like religious people shouldn't be allowed to tell others what to feel and believe. Even if we could, we wouldn't be very succesfull.
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I bet it would most likely be in Deuteronomy. Find it yourself.
Demonstrate how much your soul doesn't need your body by donating your heart.....right now.
I think the point was that once you're dead, your soul doesn't particularly need your body. I don't know if we have an immortal soul or not, but when I'm dead I want to donate my body to science - with the proviso that when medical students have finished practicing on me, they leave bits of my body around as a prank, with the label "Hi, I'm Gordonjcp and I'm dead now - but I am still doing it for the lulz."
It is only an empty shell now. Please treat it as such.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I've done a search of an online Bible. I can't find it anywhere. My guess is that it's in Nabbler's tradition so he assumes it must be in the Bible somewhere, without checking.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
I wouldn't really mind. If buried, it's going to rot in short order anyway, and if used for science it can be easily cleaned (I figure they probably clean it anyway, I bet a lot of people die in less than pristine conditions). The outcome of any of those things is considerably more disgusting than just a body with some pee on it, but interestingly that doesn't seem to bother you.
no they found out about the nuclear Frankenstein that was being made.
But these people are dead. If I'm dead, and the government removes organs from my body, then they're not violating MY rights, simply because *I* don't exist anymore. (You may disagree if you believe in the concept of an immortal soul, of course.)
They violate the rights and feelings of your living family members.
We're sorry... Soooo. Sorrry...
At BP we're committed to environmental protection. That's why we're drilling even deeper than before, right to the bowels of hell to release Cuthulu.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Are we really comparing organ donation to micturating on a dead body?
Actually, Slavery is still legal, depending upon where you live.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
...how chianti sales are going in the UK
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
No these are not the kidneys you are looking for!
And elsewhere in the article, I can see no other actual dates. Four decades looks like a bit of a stretch as does the magnitude of the story. The thief/scientist that initiated and carried out most of the autopsies is long since dead.
Remember that this was from 1960 - 1991. It's not a recent thing. In fact the UK Government has seriously tightened up on this over the last 20 years.
[quote]It's about the living; and respect; doofus.[/quote]
Look at the motive. There's a world of difference between those two things. One is to try and annoy the relatives of the dead person. I'll leave you to guess which of the two actions comes under that category.
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That just takes you into the nebulous area of a 'right not to be offended' - a subject which could be the subject of quite a debate in itsself.
I never said that they did. You should, however, care more about the memories of the person than the persons dead body which they will no longer have a use for.
Yes, like the memory where I completely disregarded my loved one's wish to not have their body desecrated by the government.
My car is an empty shell, it doesn't mean the government can come in and take my stereo. What gets me is the audacity of these people to think they have a right to someone else's body. My wife knows what I want for my body when I die, and even though I am not there, I still expect her and my family to respect my wishes. It is not up to the government to decide how my remains are handled. How you are buried and what you do with your organs after death can be a very personal and important issue to some people. Please treat it as such.
Yes, you would be upset, but not for the reasons you think you would.
Always look at the motive. They must want to hate you to do something like that, and that's actually what you are really picking up. The action itself is of no consequence, for good or for bad.
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>But these people are dead.
That wasn't clear from the summary.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I'm referring to empathy towards people experiencing loss. Just because you don't feel that the body deserves respect, (nor do I, I carry an organ donor card everywhere I go,) that does not mean that it is worthless to respect the wishes of others.
.: Max Romantschuk
If the government takes your organs for the purpose of covering its ass, and in the process someone who could use an organ of yours doesn't get a transplant, harm is done.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
"such as the replacement of bones with lengths of broomstick."
Did...did they really think no one would notice?
C'mon man, at least put some cheap plastic bones in there, you can find them at any convenience store around Halloween.
While I think the method of harvesting the organs is open to lots of criticism, I think they could prove quite useful in the future (if they or samples of them have been preserved).
Both X-rays [1], neutrons and heavy ions at high velocity damage DNA and can induce DNA double strand breaks. DNA double strand breaks, courtesy of the WRN and DCLRE1C (Artemis) genes are *not* repaired reliably. They allow genome corruption to creep into the genome of each cell. This in turn can induce cancer or its lesser cousin "aging" (when the damage accumulates in genes which are not oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes).
One would suspect that nuclear industry workers are exposed to higher levels of X-rays, neutrons and heavy ions (why else would they be required to wear radiation monitoring badges?). The same is true to some extent for astronauts and to a lesser extent pilots and frequent flyers. And then of course there is your dentist and your local hospital. And don't forget about the TSA (at least as far as the X-rays go). To my knowledge there is no "safe" level of X-rays -- there are just greater or lesser amounts of damage & probable mutations caused.
Genome sequencing is now becoming cheap enough that the tissues of these workers may have their genomes sequenced. If correlated with their lifetime radiation exposures one could then determine relative risks more completely than is now the case. Relative risk determination generally involves a lot of hand-waving regarding radiation dose and type which are generally extrapolated from high dose exposures (atomic bomb blasts) or animals which have different DNA repair capabilities compared with humans. So the children or grandchildren of these individuals may yet benefit from their unapproved contribution to medicine.
Lets put it this way:
The fact that they were taken was because of the fact that they worked in Nuclear Energy - which probably meant it was irradiated or something - which means that you probably shouldn't give it to anyone else - especially if they died.
That said, if the people died of old age, then you're not going to give the organs, because they'll be too old anyway.
If the dead voted, they would be able to own property.
The dead do vote, predominantly in Chicago, where every few years they re-elect a man without a soul. Some say he raises the dead by means of a dark magic and that voting places are haunted in Chicago. But those who study the dark arts know that he actually has a soul blade that he uses to control the undead voters, and when he loses an election, he will be claimed by the dark powers.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The transfer of sentiment from the living to some inanimate symbol (be it a photo or a corpse) speaks of inability to distinguish between people and things. It is a sickness, plain and simple.
In the extreme, people who collect organs from people they feel attracted to tend to be called psychopaths and killed once they are found out.
I blame the extreme sickness of modern western attitudes towards death on the institutionalization of dying. If you can't see your loved one die because at that point they're cradled by machines and prodded by doctors, if you can't touch the dead body because it's in the hands of the coroner, then in those of the mortician, then in a coffin to be buried or burnt post-haste, well then, you may be forgiven for not understanding the reality of death and for continuing to cling to childish beliefs such as "S/he lives on in our memory."
S/he does not, you sad souls. No-one lives after they die, not even a bit. Not even in effigy. Understanding and internalizing that simple fact is the end-state of the process of mourning. Some people never get around to it, is all. What's more, such people seem to be encouraged by society at large to continue grieving indefinitely, as if it were a good thing, not the expensive, highly destructive process it actually is.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
To not be an organ donor to me is the ultimate form of selfishness. You have no need for your organs after you die, and yet you are actively preventing them from being used to save someone else's life.
"With all due respect, I believe you are being dishonest for the sake of argumentation."
Nope.
"Feelings towards loved ones don't just magically disappear at the moment of death."
I never said that they did. You should, however, care more about the memories of the person than the persons dead body which they will no longer have a use for. If it could be used to help others rather than just rot in the ground or be burnt into ashes, why not (again, I know that this wasn't the case here)? There's no sense to this.
It doesn't have to be rational. Unless you believe that Humans are 100% rational beings , and would see a corpse for what it is.
Attaching emotions to things is part of being human. Ignoring all non-rational dimensions of human nature is being illogical.
"Unless you don't have any feelings to begin with, which is still a possibility. By being a psychopath, for instance."
I suppose being different is always a possibility, but I don't really fit into this criteria.
"Psychopath" was of course not meant as an insult. Psychopaths are among the most rational of individuals, since they are not being influenced by emotions nor conscience.
I would argue that their body is more important than their clothes or their house. You probably weren't their friend because of their clothes or home but because of their personality, their words, and their actions. The words spoken from now inanimate lips and friendly help from now unmoving hands. You can wish for those lips to speak to you again, so you can get your friend/love back. But you wouldn't do something similar for their clothes.
I feel empathy to even the tools around me that i use. I know my jeep doesn't feel pain but i feel pain for it when a rock bouncing off a truck whacks the window or sidepanel. If someone punched my dead friend in the face..
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These were church organs, right? What? OK, give Gregg Allman a call..
How old are you, kid? Thirteen? Clearly, nobody you have ever loved has ever died.
Free Martian Whores!
Poor analogy.
If you do it when no one is around when the body is just sitting on the slab, then I don't really mind. Doing it in front of people as they are trying to deal with grieving, then I mind.
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So not all of your loved one's dead body went to feed the worms. Some of it went to a useful purpose. This bothers you how? If you really have a superstition about a rotting corpse in the ground serving a purpose which can only be served if it is absolutely whole (until time's ravages make it just a collection of bones, that is), yours is a sad life in the abstract, but I'm moving on. If you merely want to deprive science and medicine, BURN THE DAMN THING WHEN IT DIES! It's not a person any more.
Just as no one is allowed to own a living human being, no one should be allowed a say in what happens to a dead corpse. Now, if the departed himself left wishes that he be cremated, I would honor that request, but that's it.
Sheesh.
The math is easy. They were doing studies.
If they where hiding something, then doing nothing is all the would of had to do.
I suspect the math you are doing is wrong AND stupid.
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Why should they be respected? Feeling and opinion should not be respected just cause. That's how you end up in another dark ages.
No, I wouldn't be upset.
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That's the problem of the religious person and no one else. Said person would be well advised to entertain religious beliefs which depend solely on his own thoughts, and not on events which may be beyond his control. It's not the problem of other people if he chooses not to. It's sad, in the abstract, but nothing to govern public policy.
You're an idiot. I have worked with a lot of doctors. Most doctors care very much for people, don't think they are above the law and do not have God complex. Now, sometime morons confuse confidence and knowledge as 'god complex' but that is those morons problems, not the doctors.
Yes, if the law was broken, some punishment should be dealt. Sadly, it's hard to find the actual culprit. For example: What if the person had been told they had permission? how far can you chase that chain? It can get very diffuse quickly.
Sadly, for most people this is what they have heard:
"My dads body was secretly harvested?:" cha-ching! "that terrible" cha-chinng "I am emotionally" cha-ching " traumatized."
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The fact that you see only two possibilities:
1) Having feelings for a rotting corpse
2) Having no feelings
is rather telling. You left out the third possibility, which I believe is the one that most people entertain:
3) Having feelings for the memory of the late human being, not for the rotting corpse which was once a component - and only a component, and not the most important component - of that loved one
The empathy isn't for the dead, it's for the surviving loved ones, those who loved the dead person. When you see your best friend's corpse laying in the casket, you don't see an inantimate object (which it actually is), you see your best friend.
Free Martian Whores!
Cool; so when someone close to you dies they wont mind if I come along and urinate on their body before the funeral? Given what you just wrote you wont object to that right?
It's about the living; and respect; doofus.
Its disrespectful to urinate on someones fence, their car tyre, whatever, its disrespectful not because of the action, but because of the reasoning behind it.
Yes, Urinating on a corpse is disrespectful to the dead as there is no good reason to do it, but harvesting organs of the dead is about respecting the living.
The living are more important than the dead; doofus
Modded offtopic? Someone isn't brushed up on their popular culture.
GFA/M/S d-- s: a--- C++++ UBL++$ P+ L+++ !E- W++ N+ !o K- w--- !O !M !V PS++ PE Y+ PGP+ t+++ 5- X+ R tv@ b++ DI++++ D+ G
You probably weren't their friend because of their clothes or home
Obviously you've never been exposed to a materialistic society. :)
Is your friend an undergraduate or graduate student? I'd lay a small wager that it is the former in your case.
The undergraduate degree I read over a decade ago (BA in Computation - anywhere else this would be a BSc in Computer Science) was indeed a very mediocre course (and there were only two lecturers that were any good, though most of my tutors - those who conducted tutorials consisting of two students at a time - were very good); but to be perfectly honest most undergraduate programmes in CS in existence are rather mediocre (I can't speak for other disciplines).
The key thing is the quality of research undertaken in the University - this is certainly world-class in most disciplines (which impacts those reading higher degrees by research). This probably won't impact you much if you were reading an undergraduate degree, though.
I can't agree that the "majority of students who go there are considered 'mediocre'," though. The vast majority of people I knew (which is significantly more than your one friend) were intelligent and articulate. This is what tends to happen when you have a selection system which requires applicants to hold extremely high academic grades (three A grades at UK A-level, or if you are from the US a score of 2,100/2,400 in the SAT reasoning test or an ACT score of 32/36), and then go through an interview-based selection.
I know certain other religions place a very high premium on body in-tact-ness as well. Rastafarians for example have an extremely powerful devotion to keeping the body whole - to the point of refusing life-saving surgery that would excise a necrotic limb. Its a major contributor to the death of how Bob Marley died.
The government has all sorts of requirements for where, how soon and what you may do with the recently deceased body of a family member. If you have all these obligations and responsibilities, then you certainly have some rights over its treatment as well.
Otherwise they can pay for the fucking burial.
The dead own property in Illinois? Interesting.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Weirdly enough, I feel like donation is the most respect you could ever possibly show to a body, short of going all Frankenstein on it. It's the culmination of someone's choices throughout life, and people want to burn it or bury it filled with chemicals.
That's fine. People declaring such beliefs should be barred from receiving donated organs then.
The worms, mold and bacteria object to your use of the word absolutely.
Unsure about overseas, but "Scope of Employment" should _always_ be considered. Otherwise, "go dump that toxic sludge in the lake or you are fired" comes back to haunt us.
Given the lack of consent in the gathering of the organs, my question now is whether the research data gathered is now invalidated. Generally, data gathered through unethical means cannot be used in research papers that hope to see the light of day in peer reviewed journals. So you won't see any published papers based on the findings from experiments done on concentration camp prisoners during WWII, for example. Similarly, if there have been papers published based on data from this nonconsensual organ gathering, I think they would have to be pulled and the authors censured.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
If you believe in the concept of an immortal soul, then at that point you arn't using your body any more - so it doesn't really matter that much anyway. Body - Soul = Meat.
Tell that to the Ancient Egyptians.
Actually, in the UK, I believe that the body does not legally belong to anyone, the previous owner having departed. It is customarily left up to the heirs, if any, to dispose of it in a suitable fashion.
How long, do you think, it will be before human remains, complete or not, are declared hazardous waste and have to be disposed of by operatives in full hazmat suits?
My property goes to my heirs at my death. My body is my property.
Slavery is illegal. No-one else can own your body except you.
Correct on the former, totally incorrect on the latter.
In many places, your will should include leaving your remains to an heir, to ensure that your funeral wishes will be carried out.
If you don't leave your body to someone, in many jurisdictions it goes to the State.
You can also leave your remains to research, for example. You don't think all those cadavers that medical students disect still own themselves, do you?
Putting moderation advice in your
The dead voting in Chicago is a long standing tradition and I haven't seen them get any additional rights from it.
It makes no difference when your dead if your organs are in a jar, cremated, or rotting in the earth.
Cool; so when someone close to you dies they wont mind if I come along and urinate on their body before the funeral? Given what you just wrote you wont object to that right?
That is disgusting! Please wait until AFTER I've fucked all the holes in his mom's corpse, including the ones I cut in her.
what more is life than a bucket of chemicals ?
What more are thoughts and feelings but chemical reactions? I wonder what it feels like to decompose... I can see where the concept of hell came from.
Free Martian Whores!
If your hot wife died, would you fuck her corpse? What? No? But I thought you had feelings for her... Oh you mean it IS different. Well, why didn't you say so?
isn't that the ultimate death tax?
Bird, bird, eye, bird, ankh.
So you actually thought that the UK *secretly* took organs out of living people?
Uh-huh. Right.
The radiated organs taste a lot better than regular ones.
yeah my father use to do autopsy and I saw one at 12, it was fascinating learning experience. It was pretty sterile and clean, and done with up-most respect. And a great care was taken not to disfigured the corpse. Sure the instrument used to saw the chest was imposing but that is about it...
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
You are so dishonest you may be even fooling yourself.
Kind of a selfish wish they had if their body could be used to help others in some way, don't you think? I'd much rather know that the body of someone I used to know went to saving the lives of others rather than just rotting in the ground or being turned into ashes.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Age is irrelevant. Not to mention that assuming something about a stranger on the internet that you don't even know is a little 'immature' in and of itself.
"Clearly, nobody you have ever loved has ever died."
That would have sufficed, but unfortunately for you, it is incorrect.
Do you really care more about the body than you did the actual person (memories, personality, etc)? Wouldn't you rather see the body be put to good use and potentially help other people than rot in the ground or be turned into ashes? It seems like that would be the logical approach. That is all I am saying.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Yes, you would be upset, but not for the reasons you think you would.
Always look at the motive. They must want to hate you to do something like that, and that's actually what you are really picking up. The action itself is of no consequence, for good or for bad.
What part of 'rational or not' are you having a problem with here? When people are upset the last thing they want to hear is someone telling them why they shouldn't feel the way they do. That's just now how it works.
"Unless you believe that Humans are 100% rational beings , and would see a corpse for what it is."
I wish.
"Attaching emotions to things is part of being human. Ignoring all non-rational dimensions of human nature is being illogical."
I didn't ignore it. I know that some people are illogical and would rather have the body rot in the ground or be turned into ashes rather than have it potentially help other people, but that's why I expressed my disapproval with that line of thinking.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
They are hazardous. That's why you're not allowed to bury grandpa in your back yard.
there is no god but truth, and reality is its prophet
Why should they be respected? Feeling and opinion should not be respected just cause. That's how you end up in another dark ages.
Because on the whole, respecting peoples feelings makes the world a better place for all those who live in it, that's why.
I'm sure that you can easily construct many extreme cases where the above doesn't hold true, but wanting the dead bodies of people you once cared for to be treated with a bit of respect doesn't hurt anyone.
Eddie! Get on the phone NOW before these stiffs whiff!
What does organ donation have to do w/ the government removing random parts of your body for no reason? I'd love it if my organs helped save a life, but that doesn't mean my body is open for a free-for-all.
Well, I was talking about organ donation in general, and you can donate your body to science (which could, potentially, help people). In this specific case, however, they seemed to have been doing it for absolutely no reason. Yeah, in this case, I agree that it was pointless.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Yeah - the bible of "I pick up gibs for funsies"
Obviously I would put it more tactfully than that if one really that were upset. But the basic point still stands.
My point was the scenario is very different to the one in the story because the motive behind them is totally different. The motive in the story is morbid utility at best, and greed at worst. The story you portrayed would be there was pure hate involved.
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You're a child molester. Also, a terrorist. By the way, hello! I haven't "worked with a lot of doctors", but I have studied with them. Show me the student and I will show you the raving callous egomaniac who views mere humans as ugly bags of mostly water . Most of their training is obsolete by the time they learn it, let alone when they put it into practice, so any confidence they have is based on ignorance, not knowledge. To be fair though, it's only about 95% of them that are callous egomaniacs: the other 5% can very nearly pass for humans.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The story you portrayed would be there was pure hate involved.
I was thinking more of pure indifference. Someone doing something because it entertained them, not to intentionally cause any pain to anyone else.
Age is irrelevant
You've just given yourself away as someone who's young. Age is NOT irrelevant; with age comes experience and hopefully, wisdom. Why do you think people are burned in effigy? Why do people throw darts at photos of people they dislike?
No go away, boy, I'm done biting your troll.
Free Martian Whores!
...you're not allowed to bury grandpa in your back yard.
Yes you are (in the UK) - if you get the right permission:
http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/gardenburial.html
Why can't people just accept the fact that a dead body is a DEAD BODY. Once you've had a funeral, the carcass is a potentially valuable resource that should be used, not stuffed six feet under to rot.http://news.slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=story&sid=10/11/17/0441202#
Only three things are certain in life. Death, taxes, and getting your organs harvested by the government.
I think the third is a special case of the second.
"You've just given yourself away as someone who's young."
No, I've just given myself away as someone who doesn't care about age. The straw men arguments are wearing thin. Same with the guilt by association arguments.
"with age comes experience"
With knowledge comes experience. If it was possible to download information to your brain and you downloaded an entire subject to it, you would be experienced in that subject, regardless of age. But, really, it depends on the person and how quickly they memorize information. However, being older does mean that you have had more time to memorize information, but that's the only relation. I agree that someone who has worked in a profession much longer than someone else is likely to be more experienced, but that goes without saying.
"Why do people throw darts at photos of people they dislike?"
They're illogical.
"No go away, boy, I'm done biting your troll."
Why does it seem so many people feel that someone having a different opinion than them means that they are a troll?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
The government's been using the contents of people's heads like puppets for millennia, so no real change there. :)
If it was in the parent's presence though, it would be awfully hard to imagine the doctor wasn't doing it to irritate them.
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I'd say that the fuss is about equality under the law.
If a private citizen goes about harvesting organs from cemeteries, they can expect to be penalized.
The dead vote in Chicago all the time!
If you google for "dead candidate" you'll see that the dead are occasionally elected to office as well.
It's not the lump of dead meat that deserves the respect, it's the still living relatives. If I urinate on your corpse it is your still living relatives that I am profoundly disrespecting.
I would add that harvesting organs with the blessing of the relatives for the purpose of preserving the life of others is quite a bit more respectful than stealing them for a research project and packing the empty spaces with whatever junk you have on hand.