Bodies donated to medical school sold on to US army

SEVEN bodies donated to a medical school in the United States were sold to the US army and blown up in landmine experiments, it was revealed yesterday.

Tulane University in New Orleans said it had suspended its dealings with a distributor of donated bodies in the wake of the revelation, the second allegation of the misuse of bodies donated to universities for research.

Last week, Los Angeles police arrested the director of the willed body programme at UCLA’s medical school, as part of an investigation into claims that bodies given to the medical school were illegally sold for profit.

Tulane received up to 150 donated bodies a year but needed only 40 to 45 for classes, Mary Bitner Anderson, the co-director of the medical school’s Willed Body Programme, said.

The university paid National Anatomical Service, a New York-based company that distributes bodies, less than 650 a body to deliver surplus cadavers, thinking they were going to medical schools in need of corpses.

But the company sold seven corpses to the army for between 15,000 and 20,000, said Chuck Dasey, a spokesman for the army’s medical research and materiel command in Fort Detrick, Maryland.

The bodies were blown up in tests on protective footwear against landmines at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas.

Tulane said that it found out about the army’s use of the bodies in January last year. It suspended its contract with the anatomical services company this month.

"There is a legitimate need for medical research, and cadavers are one of the models that help medical researchers find out valuable information," Mr Dasey said. "Obviously it makes some people uncomfortable."

US military researchers have for years bought bodies for tests involving explosive devices. In the last five years, they had been used to help determine safe stand-off distances, build the best shelters and improve helmets, Mr Dasey said. Remains were cremated, he added.

Michael Meyer, a philosophy professor at Santa Clara University in California, who has written about the ethics of donated bodies, said the military’s use was questionable because it knew donors did not expect to end up in landmine tests.