Body Brokers : Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains

Body Brokers : Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains

by Annie Cheney

I always thought it would be kind of cool to donate my body to science. After all, I won’t need it, and the thought that I might help a medical student or research scientist in some way was appealing. Now, not so much.
Hands down, this is the most disturbing book I’ve ever read. Annie Cheney takes a detailed look at the thriving body-parts industry in the US, and it’s not a pretty sight. There are federal regulations that control organ procurement organizations (OPOs), which coordinate the supply of transplantable organs. There’s no such oversight for the provision of other kinds of body parts, including corneas, tendons, bones, and various other parts. One of the most upsetting images to me was Cheney’s description of a visit to a surgical clinic in a swank Miami hotel; behind the doors of a meeting room, doctors learn and practice techniques for laparascopic kidney surgery on armless, legless, headless human torsos.
Cheney highlights a number of problems with the current state of the tissue industry, the biggest being that there are huge financial incentives for the sale of human tissue, and these incentives lead people to do unethical and illegal things, including harvesting tissue from deceased people without their families’ consent and “parting out” bodies donated to medical schools for profit. (I was especially distressed to read that LSU and Tulane are both big players in this latter industry). The recent scandal surrounding Michael Mastromarino‘s company (which not only stole body parts without consent but sold diseased tissue that was implanted into otherwise healthy people) is only a visible sign of the rot at the heart of this industry.
I don’t recommend reading this for enjoyment, but it was certainly an eye-opener.