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The
Billion-Dollar Body Parts Industry: Medical Research alongside Greed and
Corruption
As the cultured
host of PBS' long-running "Masterpiece Theater," Alistair Cooke was an
emblem of American taste and refinement. Since his death in 2004, Cooke has
also become emblematic of a macabre and little-known market: America's
distinctly shady traffic in human remains. |
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Unbeknownst to his family, Cooke's bones were cut out before he was cremated
and sold for $7,000 to two companies that prepare human tissue for
transplant. Cooke's fate was ghoulish in the extreme -- but what is even
more disturbing is that it was not at all unusual.
Body parts are big business in the United States. Tissue, organs, tendons,
bones, joints, limbs, hands, feet, torsos and heads culled from the dead are
the cornerstones of the lucrative and important
business of advancing
scientific knowledge and improving medical technique. Body parts are a
billion-dollar industry; they underwrite both cutting-edge research and
everyday medical procedures. Major corporations such as Johnson & Johnson,
Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Medtronic rely on human remains to guide them in
developing medical equipment. Researchers rely on them to hone surgical
techniques and even to create cosmetics. Doctors use them to replace heart
valves, to treat burn victims, to replace bone, even to plump up lips and
eliminate wrinkles.
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This article is suggested by Anand Mann
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