Cadaver Cash

by Joseph Bolden, staff writer,

My problem with this old then new news item titled: The Body Brokers
to me is so vast that even reading and down loading some of it was
a chore. I first hear of this stuff Saturday on KFSO1s Barabara
Simpson. As she in-terviews Mr. Mark Kathches of Orange County Register.
It began in No-vember of 1999 with interviews of people in diverse
medical fields, rela-tives of the deceased, documented laws and
loopholes to them - real inves-tigative reporting.

As Ms. Simpson said 3This is important.2 I did go on the web the
next day and saw those stories getting paranoid by the second. Please,
I urge everyone on the web whether you1ve read my columns or not,
if you can... down load every last bit of 3The Body Broker1s2 at
the Orange County Register.com . Look for yourselves.

Imagine if your spouse, brother, best friend, a parent, or any
beloved relatives dies suddenly or had a natural death usually they
are buried, cre-mated, or if they dicide to take one last chance
on science and techn-ololgy signs up for Cryonics, the after death
freeze choice where they might be back among the living while you
do the old, reincarnation through womb, or test tube birth. Others
may want to donate their bodies, organs to peo-ple, science or both
this is where trouble begins.

Some companies not all make millions of dollars off skin, heart
valves, veins, bones, and tendons. One cadaver can be worth $220,000.
Here are a few names of those companies some are non profit some
are for profit:University of Florida Tissue Bank a spinoff of a
private firm Regen-eration Technologies Inc. 1998 (dosen1t
it sound like a life giving, rejuve-nation, revitalization company?)
Osteotech Inc., Intermountain Tissue Center, a Salt Late City, a
non profit bank.

There are others all over California, New York, Chicago, where
every people die these places are they have to be where the bodies
are. Cadaver skin plumping the lips of fashion models $1,050. Ground
bones dentists use to treat patients 200,000 times a year and glossy
catalogs ad-vertise 650 products made from body parts. Do you know
a single dead body part (raw material) is worth tens of thou-sands
of dollars. Its stock is even traded on Wall Street. Folks this
looks like it is international!

Grieving families are not told their Œdonated1 gifts (loved
ones) fuels and industry predicted to hit 1billion within three
years.

Again, I say LOOK THIS UP, THEN DIG AROUND AND BEYOND OUR
COUNTRY THIS I S ALREADY QUIETLY GONE INTERNATIONAL.

The National Organ Transplant Act approved by Congress in 1984,
banned Profits from sale of Tissue. But no Tisssue Bank has been
prose-cuted. 3The law has never been tested in court2 Jeanne Mowe,
Executive Director of The American Association of Tissue Banks.
100 of millions of dollar selling products crafted from donated
human bodies even though its illegal to profit from parts.

Like space we1re back in it again supplying material for the
interna-tional space station. The Orange County Register1s story
is not just timely its a warning that the future is not through
with us even after death we be-come another valuable product.

Bye.

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