Aug 6 2023 11:02 – Updated 6 Aug. 2023 11:02
As many as 400 cadavers may have been victims of the organ trade.
Nineteen families have joined a class-action lawsuit against Harvard and its medical faculty over alleged human organ trafficking that allegedly led to heads, brains, skin and bones being sold on the black market.
Prosecutors in the United States have charged Cedric Lodge, head of the autopsy department at Harvard Medical School, along with his wife and several others, accusing them of conspiring to transport and sell human remains.
They have pleaded not guilty in the case, writes Business Insider.
The disgrace
The human remains came from people in New England who—before their deaths—voluntarily donated their bodies to Harvard’s anatomical charity program. The donors had participated in the program “in the hope and expectation that this latest service and kindness could help train a new generation of doctors,” according to a court filing.
But instead of treating the donors’ remains with respect and dignity, “Harvard left the remains in a facility that was a place of desecration, where, according to the indictment, criminals were allowed to roam and pick and choose among the remains as if they were ornaments on a flea market”.
According to a separate lawsuit filed in June, up to 400 cadavers may have been victims of the organ trade.
Among the victims of the alleged organ trafficking was a Korean War veteran who died of lung cancer and hoped his donation could help save others from the same disease.
Another was a mechanic who chose Harvard’s program because of the institution’s prestigious reputation and who joked that he would be the first in his family to attend Harvard.
Faces, heads and skin
According to the lawsuit, Harvard Medical School marketed the program as an “indispensable component of medical and dental education and research,” and that donations of human remains would allow students to “alleviate human pain and suffering.”
Instead, prosecutors allege that the donors’ body parts were dissected and sold for a variety of macabre purposes.
Some of the remains, including a human head, ended up in a doll shop in Salem, Massachusetts.
In another case, human skin was sent to a man in Pennsylvania who had been hired to “tan the skin to make leather,” according to the lawsuit.
According to the prosecution, the accused man Cedric Lodge should have received 600 dollars for two dissected faces.
The lawsuit alleges that the remains were “desecrated and looted, dismembered and sold for grotesque art and unknown gratifications.”
2023-08-06 09:02:02
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