By The Diary
Sep 18, 2024, 02:13 AM EDT
The University of North Texas Health Science Center’s Fort Worth program will stop using bodies that were allegedly unclaimed, following an NBC News investigation. The news outlet documented that the remains of poor people were used for training and research, but without the consent of their families.
“Documents uncovered through these requests revealed details of the program that HSC leaders were not previously aware of,” HSC President Sylvia Trent-Adams wrote in an email, NBC News reported.
The center was unaware that the remains were unclaimed.
There was allegedly “a lack of sufficient controls and oversight” over how outside companies handled and used cadavers provided by the Health Sciences Center.
Trent-Adams said officials were unaware that the bodies they were sending to the university included unclaimed remains, including those of U.S. military veterans.
The NBC News investigation found that the center had received about 2,350 unclaimed bodies from Tarrant and Dallas counties over the past five years. More than 830 of them were selected for the education of medical students or to be rented to companies that rely on the bodies to develop products and teach doctors how to work with them.
Cost of complete or part bodies
The center charged $1,400 for the entire bodies, according to the results of the investigation, which also detailed that the heads of these people, who apparently were of limited resources, were sold for $649 dollars and the torsos for $900 dollars.
After the investigation was made public, Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare said, “No one’s body should be used for medical research without consent prior to death or the consent of a loved one, and certainly no one’s body should be sold for profit without consent in one way or another.”
The Health Sciences Center also terminated its agreement with Dallas County, according to Administrator Darryl Martin, who told the news outlet that the county had planned to let the contract expire on Sept. 30.
Relatives learned of the death later
Officials argued they turned the bodies over to the center because they were allegedly unclaimed and had no next of kin, but NBC News found some failures by death investigators in Dallas and Tarrant counties to contact relatives.
According to the report, some of the family members found out much later that the deceased had been transferred to the medical school.
The news outlet revealed that among those bodies was Victor Honey, a mentally ill Army veteran who was homeless in Dallas. After his death in September 2022, his body was dissected and the parts were used by medical product companies.
The Honey family was unaware, but when they found out they demanded cremated remains and had them buried at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery.
For the time being, the health center has suspended its body donation program and closed a lab. The Voluntary Body Program will obtain human samples only from consenting donors, with the goal of returning to the program’s mission of educating future physicians and other health care providers.
With information from NBC News
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