UK medics took thousands of brains without consent [What the heck?]

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LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - British pathologists removed the brains from tens of thousands of human corpses over a period of 30 years without the permission of the victims' relatives, the government acknowledged on Monday.

In a sinister reminder of scandals in the late 1990s, when hospitals were found to have secretly kept the hearts of dead children for research purposes, the government said the illicit removal of brains had been "widespread in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s".

It said the true scale of the scandal would never be known because records from the 1970s were sketchy and many of the brains had been used for research or destroyed in the intervening years.

But the government's Inspector of Anatomy, Jeremy Metters, told a news conference that of 30,000 brains in storage in 2000, when a major count of stored organs was carried out, more than half were probably taken without permission.

He made 34 recommendations to ensure the scandal is not repeated and said the removal of all organs without consent should be made a criminal offence.

The scandal was brought to light by Elaine Isaacs, a widow from Manchester whose husband Cyril died in 1987 after suffering mental health problems.

Medics took his brain for research without asking permission from his wife, who only found out about it three years ago while sifting through letters written by doctors at the time of her husband's death.

Elaine Isaacs, still seething with anger at the way her husband's corpse was used, welcomed Metters' recommendations but said more should be done.

"I've been very, very angry for the past three years -- even more than I was during the previous 13 years after my husband died," she told the news conference, during which she broke down in tears.

Under current UK legislation, the organs of dead people can only be kept and used for research if their relatives give explicit consent.Metters found that in many cases, hospitals had not bothered to ask them.

The British Medical Association (BMA) welcomed the report but said it should not be used to undermine organ donation.

"The practice of taking organs without consent started at a time when medicine was far more paternalistic and doctors thought it was better that bereaved families did not have to make difficult decisions about organ donation," the BMA's Head of Science and Ethics Vivienne Nathanson said.

"It is important to realise that the health service desperately needs organs for research."

The case has drawn comparisons with the Bristol and Alder Hey scandals of 1999, when doctors in the southwest of England and Liverpool were found to have systematically stripped organs and other body parts from thousands of dead children without parental consent.

In the District of Columbia there is a law that allows the harvesting, for transplant purposes, of corneas and heart valves from the deceased, without asking permission of anyone and regardless of the wishes of the deceased or his survivors.

The excuse for not bothering to look up or obtain permission is simply that these particular items start to deteriorate almost immediately after death if not promptly taken and refrigerated.

A newspaper article a few years back said that, although this law had been on the books for about five years, apparently the Medical Examiner had never bothered to take corneas or valves .... but the DC Medical Examiner's office is so backed up that bodies start rotting before they are autopsied.

Here was the version from the Houston Chronicle (I'm including it here so I don't get an "already posted here" notice, there are some additional details and phrasings):

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/1906115

May 12, 2003, 12:49PM

20,000 human brains removed without consent
Associated Press

LONDON -- British doctors and morticians removed at least 20,000 brains for research from 1970 to 1999 without obtaining families' consent, according a government report published today.

The figure includes only those brains still held by hospitals and universities in England, and many more could have been taken and destroyed, Dr. Jeremy Metters, Her Majesty's Inspector of Anatomy, said in the report.

Removing organs without families' permission was explicitly outlawed in 1999. A law passed in 1961 said organs should only be taken from corpses if relatives did not object, though permission was not required.

In one case, Metters said, a hospital mortician was paid $16 for each brain he provided for research. Metters said it was possible that a brain could have been removed in any post mortem carried out by a hospital or coroner between 1961 and 1999.

The government ordered an investigation after a woman learned her husband's brain had been removed without her permission when he committed suicide in 1987. The couple's Jewish faith decrees that a person must be buried intact.

Elaine Isaacs found out what happened to her husband, Cyril, by chance in 2000. She said the secrecy surrounding his case was "nothing short of collusion," and she expected authorities to take action against those responsible.

"Our rights were ignored in every sense," she said.

The government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, said the practice "is an affront to families who have lost a loved one.

"I can assure them and other families that, since the time of the activities described in this report, the practice of routine retention and use of organs and tissue without consent is no longer acceptable practice in the NHS," or National Health Service, he said.

Removing organs without consent was outlawed after it was revealed that the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital in northwest England retained 3,500 organs from babies and children without their parents' knowledge.

Metters made 32 recommendations to prevent organs being retained without permission, including greater openness from all those involved in post mortems.

"There are a lot of people who would give their consent for research on the brains of their relatives," Metters said. "It would be a tragedy if my report was to undermine lawful post mortem research that has the full consent of relatives."

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