Investigators say corpses were cut up, parts illegally sold

Right...and like I said, doctors think they are above such "menial" tasks as assuring that their patients are safe. If doctors cared more about their patients, then maybe they could keep such horrible things from happening. If they are performing the operation, the bottom line is, they are responsible for everything that goes on in that surgery....from what is put in to what is taken out....all the responsibility of the surgeon.

I said division of labor allows doctors to focus less on paper trails and more on accurate procedures, and you again somehow take this as me saying doctors are "above such menial tasks". No, no, no, no, no, no, and no again, just to be sure you read it that time. What I AM saying is that I would rather have my doctor spending his time practicing the procedures, researching new techniques, etc. instead of investigating where certain materials for the procedure came from. As many posters have mentioned, there are government agencies and specific employees hired for just such a job. If you think division of labor is such a bad idea, do you think the safety manager of a plant should spend part of his day working on the assembly line and the other part finding ways to avoid accidents? Or how about bankers? Should they spend half their day processing transactions and the other half of the day making sure every person's stock investments don't drop? No, there are people hired for specific functions. That is what makes a hospital run. If you had an entire hospital managed by doctors, I can assure you, it would not function very well whatsoever. You need accountants, receptionists, insurance workers, etc.

~MFP

Exitable, would you expect the mechanic that fixes your car to know where the parts came from, or their history?
Of course not, as long as it's the right part and it works then the mech has no further obligation, other than fitting the part. The parts dep. are responsible.

Any facility, be it a garage or a hostpital has departments who take care of their respective part in the running of that facility.

I'm sure they don't call it a parts department in a hostpital lol but you should get the point.

Hostpitals are not only made of doctors. Doctors are the 'mechs'. There are more people who work 'behind the scenes' in a hostpital than there are doctors.
I sympathise with your view, the medical industry is quit carrupt IMO, but quit blaming the doctors for everything. It's the bussiness/admin side that is FUBAR.

[edit on 12/2/2006 by ANOK]

Exitable, would you expect the mechanic that fixes your car to know where the parts came from, or their history?
Of course not, as long as it's the right part and it works then the mech has no further obligation, other than fitting the part. The parts dep. are responsible.

This is a pretty scary analogy. Comparing the human body to a car. A doctor is working on a human being, not a mechanical device. Huge difference and the analogy doesn't work at all.

I don't think it's that far off, Excitable. If the mechanic doesn't do the work properly, the car will malfunction and possibly kill the passengers. Seems applicable to me. But how about instead of picking apart the analogy you answer the questions asked?
~MFP

Originally posted by Excitable_Boy

This is a pretty scary analogy. Comparing the human body to a car. A doctor is working on a human being, not a mechanical device. Huge difference and the analogy doesn't work at all.

LOL well you obviously missed the point. I wasn't comparing a human body to a car was I?

No, I was comparing a doctor to a mechanic, to hopefuly make the point that the doctor can't handle EVERYTHING, just like bsl4doc said.

Why do you want to blaim the doctors so bad? Isn't it the fault of the suppliers and the guys who recieve the parts in the hostpital?

Do you really think a doc, all scrubbed and patient on the table, is then going to refuse a part that looks perfectly healthy?
The doctor has to trust the supplier and the hostpital staff, they have no choice at that point.

Maybe now this story is out though, some doctors I'm sure will be asking more questions in the future?

This thread, and your adamant, silent refusal to respond to salient points while continuing to say the same thing over and over, says a lot about the nature of our disagreement in another thread, Excitable Boy.

Research your topics. Think it through, if you can, preferably before posting. Avoid (figuratively) the following scenario -

Step 1 - Open mouth, insert foot.

Step 2 - Repeat Step 1.

and I thought I was a loose cannon!

[edit on 13-2-2006 by Icarus Rising]

Here is an article from ATS...

www.atsnn.com...

There is an interesting line at the end of the article:

I am also wondering if perhaps there are some doctors involved in this conspiracy since a normal layman does not have the expertise to remove veins, tendons and heart valves?

So, I am not the only one that thinks DOCTORS ARE INVOLVED!

And some info on the money that can be made from this illegal and macabre practice:

The acquisition and sale of body tissues is big business. Experts say sales of skin tissues and human transplant parts exceed $500 million a year. Bones, tendons, veins, and heart valves from just one cadaver can net more than $220,000, the Orange County Register newspaper found in 2000.

source: www.charleston.net...

This stuff also happens in Egypt, but they are actually killing children and then selling the parts (this I DO NOT blame on doctors):

Egypt's general prosecutor is investigating allegations that an organisation charged with caring for homeless children has been killing them, and selling their body parts for profits.

source: news.bbc.co.uk...

This is for the poster that compared the human body to a car:

A dead body can be worth tens of thousands of dollars when it is dissected for parts.

source: www.azcentral.com...

I guess you were right. Cars are worth more when you strip them and sell them for parts...and so is the human body.





[edit on 13-2-2006 by Excitable_Boy]

Do you really think a doc, all scrubbed and patient on the table, is then going to refuse a part that looks perfectly healthy?
The doctor has to trust the supplier and the hostpital staff, they have no choice at that point.

Maybe now this story is out though, some doctors I'm sure will be asking more questions in the future

Regarding the first paragraph: No, I think the doctor should know for sure BEFORE he is scrubbed and the patient is on the table whether the part is healthy or not. If he or she is going to put it in the body, then ultimately it is his or her responsibility.

You say you think doctors in the future will be asking more questions due to this story. I think they should always ask questions and it shouldn't take a story like this for them to do so.....

Yes there are doctors involved, but it is extremely unlikely the surgeon performing the procedure is the same doctor that extracted the donor tissue from the cadaver to begin with. The donor tissue doesn't necessarily have to be extracted by a doctor, either. Once an individual is trained in the procedure on a cadaver, it doesn't take a doctor to perform it.

You are correct in that there is definitely some illegal activity going on that involves the medical profession and some doctors, but your original target, the surgeon performing the implant procedure with the cadaver tissue, is off the mark. You didn't even seem to be aware, initially (from your early posts to your thread), that cadaver tissue was routinely used in surgeries such as this.

It would be nice, and it would help you avoid coming off as a horses behind, if you could acknowledge salient points made by other posters, even if they contradict, correctly, what you have previously posted.

Or do you have a problem admitting you may have been mistaken, or cast too broad an aspersion, so to speak?

I agree that tissue donors, and the companies that provide said tissues, need to be subject to a stringent vetting process to avoid the problems you have highlighted in your thread.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect the surgeon performing the procedure to personally do the vetting. The surgeon performing the procedure should be able to operate under the complete assurance that the vetting process has been complete and completely successful in achieving the provision of a safe, healthy piece of implantable tissue.

It would be nice, and it would help you avoid coming off as a horses behind, if you could acknowledge salient points made by other posters, even if they contradict, correctly, what you have previously posted.

Or do you have a problem admitting you may have been mistaken

If you have to stoop to calling me a horses behind, you need to learn manners....and also the rules of this forum....and also learn that if you want to be taken seriously, you shouldn't call people names.

I have acknowledged the points of others and disagreed with them. Does acknowledge mean "believe them to be true" in your world? People can contradict me all they want...doesn't change my position.

I have no problem admitting when I'm wrong.....I'm not going to in this situation, however, because I'm not!

Here's another tid-bit for you...regarding the same disgusting behavior going on in England:

The claims arise out of the Alder Hey scandal of the late 1990s, when the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital was accused of removing deceased children's organs without their parents' knowledge.

source: www.spiked-online.com...

Now....I'm not a doctor, but I would bet every dime I have that those organs could not possibly have been removed by the hospital administration. I just don't think they would have a clue as to what they were doing. My educated guess would be that those organs would HAVE to be removed by trained doctors so that they were removed intact and in the proper condition to be transplanted. And those trained doctors are more than likely surgeons.....because they are the specialists with regard to removing stuff in usable condition!!

[edit on 13-2-2006 by Excitable_Boy]

You are correct in that there is definitely some illegal activity going on that involves the medical profession and some doctors

And I didn't call you a horse's behind, I said you could help yourself avoid coming off like one - touchy, touchy!

I'm sure if I had broken the T&C's, or if I have, the mods would/will let me know and warn/fine me accordingly. Unless you want to start doing their job for them, too?

Funny as this may sound, I'm on your side here, and I want you to get a cohesive message out in one piece without doing the debunkers job and discrediting yourself for them.

Then there's people selling off parts of their bodies knowingly to make money. For instance, in India:

India probably ranks in the top among countries that are
becoming great organ bazaars of the world. With the average
monthly income of $11 a month for an Indian worker, especially in
a background of vast destitute underclass, trade in kidneys has
boomed so rapidly that in each of the last five years 2,000 or more
kidney's have changed bodies. Moreover, of the total kidney
transplants, almost 10% are estimated to have commercial
considerations involved in "donation." In some cities it is as
high as 95%.

The players in the above kidney trade are the doctors who
usually charge $1,660 for the surgery, agents who seek out
potential donors, and the paid donors who are mostly poor watchmen,
laborers, or mechanics, and for whom the price paid for an organ
could be more than they could save in a lifetime.

source: www.american.edu...

Note: The doctors ARE involved in this horrendous little money-maker.

I've heard of people selling off one of their kidneys on-line to the highest bidder. But in India they are actively pursuing these people for one of their kidneys or anything else that can be removed without killing them.

I would say this is highly unethical for a doctor to be involved in such a practice.

I agree. The waking up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney story is not just an urban legend, although there may be a little embellishment going on here and there, and it doesn't just happen in India, either.

The profit motive makes many people, from mechanics to doctors, and across the professional spectrum, compromise their morals and ethics and engage in illegal, injurious activities. Imo, it is one of the inherent flaws in unrestrained capitalism, and we are starting to see its affect in many ways and in many places, recently most notably in the medical field, especially the CA Work Comp system. That is my own little personal axe to grind.

Here's one for you that I posted a while back. Another urban legend? Probably. Maybe. I don't know. Life truly is stranger than fiction.

Dead and Wounded Iraqis being used as Organ Donors

This is an issue of proximity...and quite simply if something is too remote then no liability. You can't point the finger at the Doc...if your looking for blame or liability you would have to pursue the organ registrar/dept.. It is also important to note that this area would have indeterminate liabilty issues and that would be an obstacle. This case is sig to this discussion...

E V Australian Red Cross Society (1991) 31 FCR 299

sorry case is archived... so can't link it..but if you want to spend time going through other databases...then by all means, do so

Now in that case you had the issue of a contaminated blood transfusion...this was before the thorough screening..now the blood had been donated by 'D9' ..there was at that time NO test available for HIV..well E needless to say contracted HIV..now every claim E put forward failed... the failure relied on the premise that 'the greater the benefit to others the less likely it is to avoid the risk of harm to the plaintiff, and as such less likely to receive compensation'.

It seems harsh but how many lives have been saved by having a blood transfusion...? many...now adopting precautions is vital, but this requires knowledge..after this case, once HIV antibodies became available, most legislators in AU enacted legislation to protect suppliers of blood and other products from litigation if they followed prescribed procedures in relation to requiring donors to sign certain forms and the testing of products.. eg Human Tissue Act 1983 (NSW)

It is a shame in the US Medical Practitioners havent been afforded protection under statute..in AU because of the crisis with HIH and medical indemity ...legislation had to be enacted to protect MPs...

Civil Liabilty Act 2002 (NSW) ss 5O, 5P



[edit on 15-2-2006 by NJE777]

Originally posted by bsl4doc
Considering you had the procedure in January 2005 and have yet to see any negative effects, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're okay. Your doctor probably isn't returning your calls because he has enough to worry about already with stuff like, oh I don't know, surgeries?! hehe.

~MFP

Acutally, one issue is the density of the cadaver bone. If the bone came from a very old corpse, there is a chance that the bone will not last as long as say a properly tested and approved, sterile cadaver bone. As far as the Dr., with an issue like this, I think it is the least that he OR his office could do is address the question. I have not spoken with the Dr. since the surgery. I only speak with the Nurse Practioner. I have received excuses like, he is out his wife had a baby, he is out of town, etc., when I tried calling since this latest news. Frankly, it's a little suspicious. However, I didn't think too much of him not making contact during my rehab, after all, I'm sure he is busy.

Getting back on the subject though. I still don't think the Dr. should be held accountable for the bad bones. I would hold accountable the hospitals business office.

Four indicted in stolen human tissue case

from link above
Prosecutors said the defendants took organs from people who had not given consent or were too old or too sick to donate. The defendants forged consent forms and altered the death certificates to indicate the victims had been younger and healthier, authorities said.

Prosecutors said the body parts were sold to tissue suppliers and ultimately used in disk replacements, knee operations, dental implants and a variety of other surgical procedures performed by unsuspecting doctors across the United States and in Canada.

The bodies came from funeral homes in New York City, Rochester, Philadelphia and New Jersey that contracted with the Brooklyn funeral parlor for embalming. Prosecutors said more arrests were possible.

Excitable Boy,

I heard this story on the news this week and am surprised you haven't posted anything about it here. Maybe its because it doesn't fit the premise of your thread. Only two of the individuals arrested so far have a connection to the medical industry, one as a former practitioner and the other as a nurse,

Michael Mastromarino, an oral surgeon who went into the tissue business after losing his dentist license

Lee Crucetta, a nurse, ....... allegedly helped.

The method involved a funeral home with a secret operating room, not doctors and hospitals.

Nicelli was paid up to $1,000 per body to deliver corpses to a secret operating room at his funeral parlor, where Mastromarino would remove body parts, authorities said.

The whole thing is gross and stinks to high heaven, but it involves funeral homes and crooks perpetrating fraud on doctors and hospitals to a much greater degreee than it does doctors and hospitals colluding in nefarious activities, at least according to this report.

Here's another bump for the tissue donor scandal thread.

"Here's a convicted felon who could pretty much go anywhere in the country and open a tissue recovery agency," complained one tissue banker who refused to work with him, Ken Richardson of Nevada Donor Network. "That illustrates some of the problems with our existing regulatory structure."

Federal officials shut down this flesh-and-bone prospector in Raleigh, N.C., earlier this month, saying his products posed a danger to public health.

By then, he had supplied hundreds of tissues for knee repairs, spine surgeries and other medical procedures around the nation, many of them allegedly procured in an unsterile funeral home embalming room.

link

It must be the high demand for cadaver tissue, the lucrative nature of the business, and the organized crime connection to the funeral home industry that keeps these stories coming.

Excitable boy...

This is not the first time you have embarrassed yourself and the ATS community.

STOP Generalizing.


I am sure that there are bad doctors, but I am also sure that there are many more good ones.

Your statements are narrowminded. I would like to use other language to describe your posts but then again I like it here on ats.

You need to realize that doctors in most states are put under huge pressure by insurance companies.

Some lawyers (Excitable boy- please notice lack of generality), are running this country into the ground.

I think that people like EB are perpetuating the problem. If this keeps going, one day there will be NO doctors at all.


I spent time as a volunteer in a rural hospital in Peru. Those people were grateful for doctors. They appreciated the intensity and difficulty of surgery. I was with plenty of American and Peruvian doctors and all the operations were free. There was no money invovled. It was people helping people. Doctors help people, EB, they are not out to inflict you with syphillus.

It makes me sick to see ignorant americans like EB ranting about something they know nothing about.


Please EB, DENY IGNORANCE