9 research outputs found
A Bioethos for Bodies: Respecting a Priceless Resource
The value that willed body donors provide to medical education is priceless. Their precious gift helps to teach anatomy, spatial relationships between morphological structures, anatomical variation, and professionalism to medical students in a way that plastic models, podcasts, and lectures cannot. They are also an important resource for medical research and a wide variety of postgraduate training opportunities. While many body donation programs throughout the world are nonprofit organizations, there are body donation companies in the United States that sell donors forâprofit. These âbody brokersâ have accumulated large profits from this business. It is incongruous that others would profit from such a priceless, freely donated gift. To prevent this incongruity, it is proposed that the international anatomical community develop a normative culture (a bioethos) for body donation programs. This would involve the conscious and systematic development of ethical principles for the dayâtoâday policies and practices of institutions that collect and use human bodies. With the development of this bioethos, a cultural shift in how donors are treated would occur and, over time, this would become the normal practice. These principles would become fundamental and foundational for the procurement and use of priceless human tissues
The incompatibility of the use of unclaimed bodies with ethical anatomical education in the United States
BODIES R US: Ethical Views on the Commercialization of the Dead in Medical Education and Research
With the ongoing and expanding use of willed bodies in medical
education and research, there has been a concomitant rise in the need for willed
bodies and an increase in the means of supplying these bodies. A relatively
recent development to enlarge this supply has been the growth of forâ
profit willed body companies (âbody brokersâ) in the United States.
These companies advertise for donors, cover all cremation and other fees for the
donor, distribute the bodies or body parts nationally and internationally, and
charge their users for access to the body or body parts. In doing so, they
generate substantial profits. This review examines the historical development of
willed body programs, the legal and economic aspects of willed body programs, and
then provides an ethical framework for the use of willed bodies. The ethical
principles described include detailed informed consent from the donors,
comprehensive and transparent information about the process from the body
donation organizations, and societal input on the proper and legal handling of
willed bodies. Based on the ethical principles outlined, it is recommended that
there be no commercialization or commodification of willed bodies, and that
programs that use willed bodies should not generate profit