2. Economics drove the use of unclaimed bodies in North Texas
On paper, the Health Science Center’s arrangements with Dallas and Tarrant counties offered a pragmatic solution to an expensive problem: Local medical examiners and coroners nationwide bear the considerable costs of burying or cremating tens of thousands of unclaimed bodies each year. Disproportionately Black, male, mentally ill and homeless, these are individuals whose family members often cannot be easily reached, or whose relatives cannot or will not pay for cremation or burial.
By sending these bodies to the Health Science Center, Dallas and Tarrant counties each saved a half-million dollars a year on burial and cremation. In return, the center got a free supply of what one program official called “valuable material” needed to educate future doctors.
The center used some of these bodies to teach medical students. Others were parceled out to medical training and technology companies, including a few industry giants, that rely on human remains to develop products and teach doctors how to use them.
The supply of unclaimed dead helped bring in about $2.5 million a year from outside groups, according to Health Science Center financial records.
3. Recipients that paid the Health Science Center for bodies didn’t know they were unclaimed
Ten companies, teaching hospitals and medical schools that relied on the Health Science Center for human specimens told NBC News they didn’t know the center had given them unclaimed bodies. Some, including the U.S. Army, promised to review internal policies in response.
DePuy Synthes, which is owned by Johnson & Johnson, said it was pausing its relationship with the center after learning that it received body parts from four unclaimed people. Boston Scientific, whose company Relievant Medsystems used the torsos of more than two dozen unclaimed bodies, told NBC News it was reviewing its relationship with the center.
Some recipients — including the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences — said they had assumed that all of these bodies had been voluntarily willed to medical science because the University of North Texas office that provided specimens is called the Willed Body Program.
Dr. Douglas Hampers, the CEO of National Bioskills Laboratories — which had leased Honey’s torso — said he was disturbed to learn his company had received unclaimed bodies. He said his company would ensure that it no longer accepted unclaimed bodies and would adopt policies to make certain future specimens were donated with families’ permission.
“I don’t think you have to violate a family’s rights in order to train physicians,” he said.
4. Studying unclaimed bodies violates modern ethical guidelines
The use of unclaimed bodies ties back to a dark history, long before voluntary body-donation programs, when U.S. medical schools turned to “resurrectionists,” or “body snatchers,” who dug up the graves of poor and formerly enslaved people.
To curb this ghastly 19th-century practice, states adopted laws giving schools authority to use unclaimed bodies for student training and experiments. Many of these laws remain on the books, but the medical community has largely moved beyond them.
The American Association for Anatomy released guidelines for human body donation last year stating that “programs should not accept unclaimed or unidentified individuals into their programs as a matter of justice.” In the absence of federal data on the use of unclaimed bodies, NBC News surveyed more than 50 major U.S. medical schools. Each of the 44 that answered said they don’t use unclaimed bodies — and some condemned doing so.
“Since these individuals did not consent, they should not be used in any form or fashion,” said Thomas Champney, an anatomy professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine who researches the ethical use of human bodies.
5. NBC News’ findings sparked immediate and significant changes
For months as NBC News investigated, Health Science Center officials defended their practices, arguing that using unclaimed bodies was essential for training future doctors. But on Friday, after reporters shared their detailed findings, the center announced it was immediately suspending its body donation program and firing the officials who led it.
The center said it was also hiring a consulting firm to investigate the program’s operations, noting that NBC News had uncovered its “failures” to live up to “the standards of respect, care and professionalism that we demand.”
Before the Health Science Center announced it was suspending the program, officials in Dallas and Tarrant counties said they were reconsidering their agreements to send unclaimed bodies to the center in light of the reporters’ findings. Dallas County commissioners recently postponed a vote on whether to extend their contract. The top elected official in Tarrant County, Judge Tim O’Hare, said he planned to explore legal options “to end any and all immoral, unethical, and irresponsible practices stemming from this program.”
“No individual’s remains should be used for medical research, nor sold for profit, without their pre-death consent, or the consent of their next of kin,” O’Hare’s office said.
Both counties are scheduled to discuss the matter on Tuesday.
Mike Hixenbaugh is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News, based in Maryland, and author of “They Came for the Schools.”
