Cadaver Exhibit: Who Said OK?

The Los Angeles Times ^ | January 25, 2008 | By Marc Lifsher

[JACKRUSSELL]

(SACRAMENTO) -- Cars packed the parking lot of a shuttered CompUSA store one recent weekday afternoon as schoolchildren, health professionals and the just plain curious paid $24 apiece to stare at a score of plasticized, dissected human cadavers and roomfuls of preserved body parts.

The cadavers are displayed dramatically, with layers of skin and muscle peeled back to reveal internal organs, bones, blood vessels and nerves. The exhibition, with bodies posed as if playing a violin, swinging a golf club or performing other tasks, provoked plenty of hushed comments.   "Where do they come from?" a young woman asked a guide dressed in a white lab coat.

"They're elderly Chinese men who donated their bodies," the docent said.

Now, California lawmakers are asking similar questions about the traveling exhibits of so-called plastinated bodies. On Thursday the state Assembly voted 50 to 4 to approve legislation to ensure that the people whose remains are on display consented to be gawked at by the public. The bill next goes to the Senate.

"Although plastination was intended to advance medicine and science, many entrepreneurs are using plastination to make outrageous profits by dissecting, mutilating and parading unwilled bodies around the world and in our state," the bill's sponsor, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), said during Assembly debate. "Asking for consent and verification is not too much to ask."

The two major anatomy exhibitors are divided on the legislation. Industry pioneer Body Worlds said it has no problem providing donor documentation. The other exhibitor, Premier Exhibitions Inc., which operates the Sacramento show, said it obtained all the remains legally from Chinese medical and scientific organizations but does not know the identities of the donors.

Ma, a Chinese American, said she became concerned about the use of Chinese remains after viewing a 2005 anatomy exhibition......

[ga medic]

I have to ask where you have observed 50 deaths, and what your observations have been. If there is truly a lack of respect and reverence, why didn’t you do something to change the atmosphere? a reminder to be respectful, is all it generally takes to change the atmosphere.

[atomic conspiracy]

“We live in a country where more people know what Paris Hilton’s genitals look like than what their own pancreas does.”

Yeah, but California law requires a public utility to be open for inspection.

[gusopol3]

a reminder to be respectful, is all it generally takes to change the atmosphere.

then I take it you have seen it, at least on occasion and have a good remedy for it. No doubt, I overstated the prevalence.