It sounds awful, but how much more to the story is there?
When you donate your body to science, do you get to specify how it is used? How many other Alzheimer’s patients have already done the same and how useful is each body for research? How much does it cost to maintain a body in a preserved state that can be useful for medical research and was that body able to meet the needs of the research?
There’s probably terms and conditions for the companies that do these things that say they try to comply with the donor’s wishes, but it’s really going to end up at the discretion of the business.
Also, the articles I’ve read make it seem like some nut in the military just bought grandma with a government credit card and strapped some dynamite to her just for a sick joke. Blast testing may help save thousands of lives in the future, I don’t know if a human body is really needed for some level of validation testing of a product in R&D before fielding, but we won’t know that from the clickbait-style of reporting. Maybe the Army decides the negative press isn’t worth it and rewrites it’s testing criteria and less thoroughly tested body armor or construction standards are used in the future. I do hope the man gets to learn the value of his loved one’s donation and that it was in fact used to collect data that helps save lives in the future.
Biologicals are biologicals, but this is unnerving.