Free Republic

Two former Philadelphia funeral directors on Tuesday admitted to selling cadavers to a ring that cut them up and sold the body parts to hospitals for implants. Gerald Garzone and his brother Louis Garzone pleaded guilty to charges that they conspired with others to take bones, skin and organs from 244 bodies in their funeral homes between February 2004 and September 2005. They were part of a scheme that plundered 1,077 bodies in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania without the permission of relatives in an operation that netted the conspirators $3.8 million. One of the bodies belonged to Alistair...

Just a quote from the story .... The ring forged death certificates to hide donor diseases such as AIDS, cancer and hepatitis C, an investigative grand jury in Philadelphia said in a lengthy indictment in October. They also lowered the donors' ages and dates of death to make the specimens more desirable, the indictment said.

As the anesthetic wore off, Naseem Mohammed said, he felt an acute pain in lower left side of his abdomen. Fighting drowsiness, he fumbled beneath the unfamiliar folds of a green medical gown and traced his fingers over a bandage attached with surgical tape. An armed guard by the door told him that his kidney had been removed. Mr. Mohammed was the last of about 500 Indians whose kidneys were removed by a team of doctors running an illegal transplant operation, supplying kidneys to rich Indians and foreigners, police officials said. A few hours after his operation last Thursday, the...

This is a lengthy, comprehensive and well written account of the pros and cons of the Chinese economy. One must read the whole article to grasp its balance and fairness but it begins thusly: China is securing an ever-bigger share of the world market with the methods of a planned economy. Competitors and economists alike are astounded by the country's seemingly unstoppable march to becoming a global economic superpower. The development has left many wondering: Does communism work after all?

NHS patients have been implanted with potentially contaminated pieces of bone from a batch stolen from dead Americans, including the veteran broadcaster Alistair Cooke. More than 70 pieces of bone were grafted into the patients at about 20 hospitals after they were imported from a New Jersey company now under investigation in America. The imported bones were harvested by the firm from corpses in US funeral parlours without the deceased’s prior consent and without adequate checks to ensure the bodies were free of disease. While many of the affected bone products that entered Britain were recalled after a safety alert,...