INSPECTOR’S REPORT: Near Las Vegas, a man was found thawing a torso outside a facility shared by a body broker and funeral home. “What they are doing is profiting from the sale of humans.” “I don’t know if I can state this strongly enough,” McArthur said. “We are seeing similar problems to what we saw with grave-robbers centuries ago,” she said, referring to the 19th-century practice of obtaining cadavers in ways that violated the dignity of the dead. “The current state of affairs is a free-for-all,” said Angela McArthur, who directs the body donation program at the University of Minnesota Medical School and formerly chaired her state’s anatomical donation commission. Few state laws provide any oversight whatsoever, and almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human body parts. But no federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. Selling hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant is illegal. They are distinct from the organ and tissue transplant industry, which the U.S. In fact, many are also unwittingly contributing to commerce, their bodies traded as raw material in a largely unregulated national market.īody brokers are also known as non-transplant tissue banks. The torso on the gurney was being prepared for just such a sale.Įach year, thousands of Americans donate their bodies in the belief they are contributing to science. Southern Nevada, the inspectors learned, was a so-called body broker, a company that acquires dead bodies, dissects them and sells the parts for profit to medical researchers, training organizations and other buyers. Is selling bodies really legal? Frequently asked questionsĮxclusive: FBI agents raid headquarters of major U.S. Video: At this family business, dissection is a “thrill”ĭoctors: Donated cadavers are essential to medical science The stream weaved past storefronts and pooled across the street near a technical school.
He was thawing a frozen human torso in the midday sun.Īs the man sprayed the remains, “bits of tissue and blood were washed into the gutters,” a state health report said. Health inspectors found a man in medical scrubs holding a garden hose. That December, local health records show, someone contacted authorities to report odd activity in the courtyard. In the fall of 2015, neighboring tenants began complaining about a mysterious stench and bloody boxes in a Dumpster. Outside Southern Nevada’s suburban warehouse, the circumstances were far from comforting. The company, Southern Nevada Donor Services, offered grieving families a way to eliminate expensive funeral costs: free cremation in exchange for donating a loved one’s body to “advance medical studies.” On the cover: a couple clasping hands. Above the image, a promise: “Providing Options in Your Time of Need.” LAS VEGAS – The company stacked brochures in funeral parlors around Sin City.
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