Posted on 03/09/2004 8:30:31 AM PST by tessalu
Over six years, a UCLA medical school official sold 496 cadavers for $704,600, according to invoices that provide the first evidence of the scope of the scandal in the school's body donor program.
Reuters Slideshow: Lawsuit Alleges UCLA Sold Body Parts
The invoices on UCLA letterhead, covering transactions from 1998 through 2003, were shown to The Times by the law firm representing Ernest V. Nelson, the entrepreneur who purchased the body parts and resold them to large research corporations.
Among the companies that bought the body parts from Nelson was pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, according to correspondence sent by the law firm to the University of California and reviewed by The Times. Reached after hours, a spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson, Susan Odenthal, said she was unfamiliar with any such transactions and could not immediately reach company officials for comment.
The new information came to light as UCLA scrambled to address the crisis enveloping its willed body program, in which program director Henry G. Reid, 54, is suspected of illegally selling body parts to Nelson for personal gain. Nelson, 46, who is not a UCLA employee, is suspected of reselling the parts to medical research companies. It is illegal to sell body parts for profit.
University officials said they had not seen the invoices reviewed by The Times and suggested they could have been fabricated. But the officials acknowledged that they had no idea of the volume of the alleged transactions, nor the amount of money involved.
"We simply, actually, do not have the facts," Dr. J. Thomas Rosenthal, associate vice chancellor of the UCLA School of Medicine, said in an interview.
Both Reid and Nelson were arrested by UCLA police over the weekend. Reid was accused of grand theft, Nelson of receiving stolen property. Both men have posted bond and been released from Los Angeles County Jail. Reid and another UCLA employee were placed on leave more than a week ago.
Reid, whose UCLA salary is $56,760 annually, has declined to talk to reporters, and left a note on his door Monday asking the media to respect his privacy.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office is still deciding how the case will be prosecuted, said head Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lynch. He said he is looking through the codes and statutes to figure out if there are special sections dealing with the disposal of bodies. "We haven't finished the research," he said. "I haven't seen the facts. The facts will dictate what law applies."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
But this story seems potentially OK, like you get 80% value and the guy doing the service makes 20% (God knows how much the U.S. is gouging him for taxes!!!).
To sell a corpse must require paperwork, insurance, etc., that cost a ton.
In the end the numbers can't be exhorbinant considering the costs I imagine could be in effect.
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