This report made my skin crawl... 4 men indicted for stealing BODY PARTS!

[American liberal]

Did anyone hear the report on NPR today about the people who have been stealing body parts from a Brooklyn funeral home to the tune of paper millions? No family permission was obtained. One family member interviewed said that some of his relative's bones were replaced with PVC pipe.

According to the report, the thieves have been getting away with this practice for YEARS! More than 1,000 bodies were pilfered and the funeral home received family permission just ONCE! Bioethicists should have a FIELD DAY with this one.

What people are willing to do for the sake of money now has a new low: stealing BODY PARTS!!! ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww....

on edit: link to story/updated subject line

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5230544

[MadisonProgressive]

1. What they don't know won't hurt them

but if they find out you're toast

[havocmom]

2. Wouldn't they have to get the bodies really soon after death?

For transplants. What else would parts be used for? Are schools paying big bucks for parts?

[flyingfysh]

3. I don't understand this

Why should body parts go for such high prices? To put it bluntly, freshly dead people are very common. I wouldn't think it that hard to get permission of relatives if other people can be helped.

[MercutioATC]

4. I don't agree with profiting from it, but they're just inanimate corpses.

If you're gonna make money, you should spread it around.

Aside from that, I don't think they care if they have a bone or a PVC pipe as a femur...

[American liberal]

7. That's not the point

It was done without PERMISSION. It was done without oversight. There are very clear ethics rules that must be followed in order for medical professionals to harvest body parts in order to help somebody else. The four who were indicted allegedly broke just about every rule in the book! According to the report, the thieves even falsified reports that claimed the harvested tissue came from younger donors. Don't quote me, but one of the "victims" was a well-know personality (Alistair Cooke--thanks for the BBC link) who died in his 90s from cancer. The faked paperwork said that the body parts came from a man in his 80s who died of a heart attack. To me, this kind of behavior exemplifies the kind of evil bred from capitalism.

I signed the back of my drivers license. I'm all for organ donation. But not like this: Stealing, lying, in many places probably going against the wishes of the family or the deceased. It's DISGUSTING!

on edit: added Alistair Cooke's name.

[madrchsod]

5. ya i was going to post this -- here`s the bbc link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4742844.stm
BBC NEWS | Americas | Four charged over US bones theft

[Warpy]

6. Depending on the area, the funeral home picks up the body

from the hospital room and gets it fresh enough to use skin, bone, cartilage, and other tissues that can be harvested up to several days post mortem.

There's big money in this stuff and the mob's been into it for years.

[American liberal]

8. don't you think this is gross?

[Art_from_Ark]

9. In an earlier age, they would have been "grave robbers"

or "body snatchers". Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a story about the latter more than 100 years ago.

[dysfunctional press]

10. once someone is dead- they're gone...

just a lump of rotting flesh. so what if somebody cuts it up- at least it's going to ultimately(hopefully) good use.

i told my wife that when i go, she should advertise in the reader for sado-masochistic necrophiliacs that might want to pay big bucks for a little private time with my corpse(after the vitals have been removed for transplant)...after that i want her to take "me" to a taxidermist to get washed off/out- and then made into a nice floor lamp...and maybe a clock in my stomach.
that's the advantage of knowing that you're probably going to go first- you have someone to carry out final wishes.