Exhibit Stops Using Bodies From China

The Associated Press / Google News ^ | February 15, 2008 | The Associated Press

[JACKRUSSELL]

(NEW YORK) — The doctor behind the "Body Worlds" exhibits that show cadavers in different poses says he has stopped using bodies from China for fear that some of them may be executed prisoners, ABC News reported on Friday.

Dr. Gunther von Hagens told ABC's "20/20" that he had to destroy some bodies he had received from China because they had injuries that made him suspect they were execution victims.

The doctor invented a liquid plastic process that preserves bodies. He has put many of them on display in museum exhibits that show them in poses like playing poker or throwing a football.

One such exhibit opened Jan. 18 at the Milwaukee Public Museum and has had 100,000 paid visitors so far, Dan Finley, president of the nonprofit company that operates the museum, told The Associated Press.

"It's the biggest exhibition we've ever done," he said. "The best attended."

Finley said every specimen in his exhibit was there with informed consent. He said it was his understanding that 8,000 people have volunteered to have their bodies — which are skinned for the exhibit — used in future "Body Worlds" shows.

Meanwhile, the company that is running a similar exhibit nationwide called "Bodies ... Revealed" is under investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, to determine where the bodies and body parts came from. Cuomo spokesman Steven Cohen confirms that subpoenas have been issued to the company but the office has drawn no conclusions.

The exhibit by Premier Exhibitions Inc. of Atlanta is now in Cincinnati. A Premier spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Premier Exhibitions told ABC News it would cooperate fully.

[JACKRUSSELL]

Inventor of Plastination, Dr. Gunther von Hagens, talks about the process and his creations during a news conference at the Museum of Science in Boston, in this, July 28, 2006, file photo. Von Hagens says he has stopped using bodies from China for fear that some of them may be executed prisoners, ABC News reported on Friday, Feb. 15, 2008. Dr. Gunther von Hagens told ABC's "20/20" that he had to destroy some bodies he had received from China because they had injuries that made him suspect they were execution victims. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, file)

[JACKRUSSELL]

(Please FReepmail me if you would like to be on or off of the list.)

[Disturbin]

I’m sure none of them were political prisoners, and I’m sure none of them suffered in any way.

[Diogenesis]

If the bodies are not used for Exhibits, how long until
they are recycled as some form of Chinese candy or children's toy?

[the invisib1e hand]

culture-of-death alert.

[Chickensoup]

for fear that some of them may be executed prisoners

Oh, he has a moral scruple after all.

[BushMeister]

Von Hagens is a sick freak who has no respect for humanity. Dead human beings are not playthings to be displayed for amusement.

[elcid1970]

F@#$ing worthless Nazi!

):^(

[Radix]

Though there is lots of fascinating stuff in the Body Worlds exhibit. It is in the end, all pretty gross stuff.

I am of two minds concerning the show.

I do know for certain that I would not go to it again.

[org.whodat]

Where did this jacka== get the doctor part from are is it made up.

[org.whodat]

I looked it up, this piece of trash is the son of an SS officer.

[KittyKares]

It seems that China will sell anything, whether it is saturated with poison, put together by virtual slaves, or murdered.

[Chickensoup]

There are a lot of freaks with advanced degrees. Remember Dr Death there and I can think of a lot of others.

Brainpower has never replaced moral values.

[SERKIT]

They all died of red poisoning.

[BallyBill]

Achtung: Das is Verboten.

[Melinda]

You said it! I knew right away when at the exhibit at the Boston M.of S. when I saw one of the bodies with a pacemaker on the wrong side of the chest. (I’m not kidding!)

[2harddrive]

MAY be executed cons from China? No joke!! LOL.

[mountainbunny]

We went when my youngest was a few months old and stood before the pregnant woman who died with a fetus that was, at it’s stage of development, the same age my own child had been about one year before.
She has known she was going to pass away and asked to be plastinated with her baby. I think she was German, not Chinese.
I sat down at the nearest bench and said a prayer for her and her baby and just thought about how terribly sad it was that their lives were cut short. And about how a year ago I had been about as pregnant as she was then. It was very odd and moving.
On the day we went, it was very crowded and busy, yet no one there was loud or disrespectful in any way. Kids weren’t running around, and everyone seemed fascinated.
I saw lots of people marveling at the majesty of the human body - just amazed.
The area where the pregnant woman and the fetuses were was almost like a library; everyone was so respectful; whispering, standing there in awe.
I would go again in a minute and I would recommend it to anyone. The awe and respect I saw in people’s faces for the human body and human life was inspiring.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Not much point destroying them after paying the people who supplied them.

Personally, I think these exhibitions are pretty sick. Most people seem to be attending them with a “Gee whiz!” or “Eewww gross!” attitude, not out of serious intellectual or academic interest. The few people who attend out of serious intellectual or academic interest often end up viewing the bodies in an atmosphere dominated by giggling and sick-joking schoolchildren. As for Chinese people “voluntarily” donating their bodies for this purpose, that’s really BS. They can’t even fathom this sort of profit-making, slickly marketed, gawking extravaganza, so they would have no idea what they were really volunteering their bodies for.

[GovernmentShrinker]

More likely he has a fear of ending up in the cross-hairs of legal authorities, like his competitor.