March 10, 2021
The worker had been vaccinated
Surprise: Jim Stauffer thought he was doing the right thing.He had cared for his
elderly mother, Doris, throughout her harrowing descent into dementia. In 2013,
when she passed away at age 74, he decided to donate her brain to science. He
hoped the gift might aid the search for a cure to Alzheimer’s disease.At a
nurse’s suggestion, the family contacted Biological Resource Center, a local
company that brokered the donation of human bodies for research. Within the
hour, BRC dispatched a driver to collect Doris. Jim Stauffer signed a form
authorizing medical research on his mother’s body. He also checked a box
prohibiting military, traffic-safety and other non-medical experiments.Ten days
later, Jim received his mother’s cremated remains. He wasnt told how her body
had been used.Records reviewed by Reuters show that BRC workers detached one of
Doris Stauffer’s hands for cremation.
After sending those ashes back to her son,
the company sold and shipped the rest of Stauffer’s body to a taxpayer-funded
research project for the U.S. Army.Her brain never was used for Alzheimer’s
research. Instead, Stauffer’s body became part of an Army experiment to measure
damage caused by roadside bombs.Internal BRC and military records show that at
least 20 other bodies were also used in the blast experiments without permission
of the donors or their relatives, a violation of U.S. Army policy. BRC sold
donated bodies like Stauffer’s for $5,893 each.Army officials involved in the
project said they never received the consent forms that donors or their families
had signed. Rather, the officials said they relied on assurances from BRC that
families had agreed to let the bodies be used in such experiments.BRC, which
sold more than 20,000 parts from some 5,000 human bodies over a decade, is no
longer in business. Its former owner, Stephen Gore, pleaded guilty to fraud last
year. In a statement to Reuters, Gore said that he always tried to honor the
wishes of donors and sent consent forms when researchers requested them.Jim
Stauffer learned of his mother’s fate not from BRC or the Army but from a
Reuters reporter. When told, Stauffer curled his lip in anger and clutched his
wife Lisa’s arm."We did right," Lisa reassured him.
They just did not honor our
wishes."The story of how an Arizona grandmother’s remains came to be used in a
Pentagon experiment shines a spotlight on a growing but little-known industry:
the trade in human cadavers and body parts.The body-brokering business is
distinct from organ transplantation, in which hearts, livers, eyes and lungs are
carefully removed from the dead to extend or enrich the lives of the living. It
also is separate from the business of using skin, tendon or bone from cadavers
to repair joints or other parts of the body. Those practices are strictly
regulated by U.S. law. In contrast, the buying and selling of human bodies not
used for transplant receives scant oversight.No federal law regulates body
brokers like BRC, and no U.S. government agency monitors what happens to
cadavers pledged for use in medical education and research."It is not illegal to
sell a whole body or the parts of a body for research or education," said
University of Iowa law professor Sheldon F. Kurtz, who helped modify the Uniform
Anatomical Gift Act, which has been adopted by 46 states. Although the act was
updated in 2006, Kurtz said, "the issue of whole bodies or body parts for
research or education never came up during our discussions."Since then, the body
trade has become big business. Only one state, New York, keeps detailed records
on the industry. According to the most recent data available, companies that did
business in New York shipped at least 100,000 body parts across the country from
2011 to 2014. Reuters obtained the data, which have never been made public, from
the state’s health department.
The New York figures represent a fraction of the
industry: Any company that handles bodies but doesn’t do business in New York
state is not included. A handful of other states either require companies to
register with state health departments or seek approval to ship individual body
parts across state lines. Most states compile no such records."We are in a
complete vacuum," said Michel Anteby, a Boston University business professor who
has researched the trade in bodies. "That’s a real problem because we are
treating bodies as a potential commodity like any other."Brokers procure
virtually all their cadavers for free from donors who believe the remains will
be used for science. As a result, brokers can turn a profit of thousands of
dollars on each body donated. "It’s about $2,500 to $3,000," said John Cover,
chief operating officer of Research for Life, a body broker based in
Phoenix.When bodies are subsequently dismembered and sold part by part, the
profit margin can be even higher. BRC charged $5,893 for a whole body in 2013; a
few years earlier, the company priced spines at $1,900, legs at $1,300 each, and
torsos at $3,500, BRC documents show.Cadavers and donated body parts provide
vital tools to teach anatomy and medical students. They also serve as a
cornerstone of the medical-device business. Artificial hips, dental crowns and
surgical devices are best tested on real human tissue. Surgeons and dentists who
implant the devices and use new tools have to be trained."There’s no way any
medical institution could function without the donation of cadavers," said David
Morton, a University of Utah School of Medicine professor and a board member of
the American Association of Anatomists.Most medical schools have strict rules
for handling bodies, Morton said. Those quality controls and ethical guidelines,
however, aren’t always followed. This year, The New York Times reported that New
York University buried an unknown number of donated bodies in mass graves. The
school apologized and said it had changed its policy in 2013 to better protect
donor wishes.
The BRC case is not the first time bodies donated to medical
schools have been misused in military experiments. In 2004, Tulane University
disclosed that bodies donated to the school were shipped to a broker who then
provided them to the Army, which used them for landmine experiments. As happened
with BRC, these donors had not consented to military use.A Bloody CoolerFederal
authorities began investigating BRC in 2011. That year, a Detroit body broker
from a company called International Biological Inc was stopped by U.S. customs
agents as he crossed the border from Ontario. He had 10 human heads with him.
According to an FBI affidavit, agents traced one of the heads to BRC.Within a
year, investigators had identified at least 250 suspect body parts sold by BRC
to the Detroit broker. Records from the Detroit and Phoenix cases show that
thousands of bodies donated for research and education were dismembered and then
sold or leased, often for commercial purposes.In January 2016, the Detroit
broker and his wife were arrested by the FBI on fraud charges related to their
practices at International Biological. The broker, Arthur Rathburn, has pleaded
not guilty and is jailed awaiting trial. His wife, Elizabeth Rathburn, pleaded
guilty to a single fraud charge but has not been sentenced.Arthur Rathburn
leased human heads, torsos and other body parts for medical and dental training
in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Italy, Greece and Israel, authorities
said. In 2012, two coolers that contained eight bloody heads and were addressed
to Rathburn were seized at the Detroit airport.Government documents unsealed Plastic Injection Custom
Molding this year also allege that Arthur Rathburn’s inventory included more
than 100 body parts infected with hepatitis, HIV, sepsis, meningitis, the
life-threatening bacteria MRSA, and the flesh-eating disease necrotizing
fasciitis.Rathburn’s lawyer, Byron Pitts, said his client committed no crime. "I
think the government has overstepped and I don’t think they are going to be able
to prove their charges," Pitts said. In a court filing this year, Pitts noted
that the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act does not prohibit the sale of body parts
and said Rathburn should not be held accountable criminally for paperwork errors
or the actions of others, including BRC.BRC also shipped infected body parts,
according to Arizona state investigation summaries reviewed by Reuters.
These
included portions of eye and ear tissue infected with Hepatitis B sent to
researchers in Tucson; eyes from a body that tested positive for Hepatitis C to
Utah for use by a biomedical firm; and a left foot infected with Hepatitis B to
a podiatry training center near Atlanta.In at least one case, BRC notified next
of kin about the infections but failed to warn researchers who received the
tissue or body parts, the records show.When a 76-year-old woman died the morning
of April 29, 2012, BRC staffers rushed to remove her brain by mid-afternoon and
shipped the 13-pound package the same day to the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource
Center near Boston. In a standard industry practice, BRC also sent a blood
sample from the woman’s body to a lab. Three days later, the sample came back
positive for Hepatitis C.BRC promptly notified the woman’s son."Unfortunately,
we received an unfavorable report for infectious disease blood testing," BRC
staff wrote in a letter. "These blood tests could not confirm that an infectious
disease was present, but did prohibit us from using the body for safety
reasons."Military blast experimentBRC, however, did not warn Harvard researchers
handling the diseased brain, records show. In fact, the researchers did not
learn that the specimen was infected until nearly two years later, when Arizona
authorities contacted them."We would never knowingly use [a brain sample] with a
history of disease," said Harvard brain donation coordinator Joseph Manzo. He
said privacy rules restricted him from commenting further on a specific
specimen.In an email exchange with Reuters, Gore apologized for not notifying
researchers. "I simply have no excuse," he said.The risks of infection are real:
Records of the Arizona state investigation show that one worker at the Georgia
podiatry facility was accidentally stuck by a needle used with the
hepatitis-infected foot.
The worker had been vaccinated.A Labour of LoveIn
emails to Reuters, Gore said that the troubles at BRC represented only a
fraction of the work by the company, which served scores of research and
training entities it supplied."BRC had an incredibly kind, professional and
caring staff on all levels," Gore said.Because BRC sold bodies and parts to
various Army subcontractors – and not directly to the military – Gore said he
sometimes received different instructions about what BRC needed to provide. But
he said he sent consent forms whenever researchers requested them."It is my
belief that we did what we could to honor the donors’ consent as we understood
it," Gore saidWhen he was sentenced in 2015 for the charge related to misleading
donors and families, Gore presented a letter to the judge explaining what went
wrong. He said he created BRC because he had grown bored as an insurance
salesman. Though he held no more than a high school degree, Gore had previously
spent nine years at a local eye and organ bank, he said, working with donor
families and assisting surgeons."This was never about financial gain but rather
a labor of love," Gore wrote. Instead of hiring a qualified medical director to
supervise how bodies and parts should be used, Gore said he relied on books and
the Internet."This was an industry that had no formal regulations to look to for
guidance," Gore wrote in his letter to the judge, "and I believe that many times
I was simply overwhelmed and I tried to do the right thing but often did
not."Arizona prosecutors said in their filing that Gore’s fraud misled those who
had hoped to provide "the most precious gift a person could bestow on society,
their own body, to benefit scientific and medical research."It was free:In
interviews, family members who signed BRC consent forms said they were focused
on saving money and serving society. They said they didn’t realize the bodies of
their loved ones would be sold or used for commercial purposes. "This was an
industry that had no formal regulations ... Many times I was simply overwhelmed
and I tried to do the right thing but often did not." "I had no money," said
Tina Johnson, who gave her husband Kerry’s body to BRC when he died of liver
failure in 2012. "It was a free cremation."Mary Hughes, whose 52-year-old son,
Grady Hughes Jr, died of cancer in late 2012, recalled that "somebody from
hospice gave us a pamphlet.""It was a good idea," Hughes said. "The cremation
was free, and it was donating the body for medical purposes."Months after the
donations, Johnson, Hughes and dozens of others received a vague form letter
from BRC listing nine potential medical education and research uses. None cited
military experiments.Some BRC donors willed bodies with the expectation that
they would be used for a specific disease. Jim Stauffer, for example, said he
hoped his mother’s brain would be used to study Alzheimer’s."It shocks me that
the military was involved," he said.The BRC consent form permitted the broker to
sell cadavers and parts to almost any entity, including commercial ventures.
Under current law, relatives have no right to learn what happened to their loved
ones.Army Project:The Army’s human-body experiments were part of a program to
protect U.S soldiers from improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.During wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army scrambled – with limited success – to fortify
vehicles. Early this decade, the Army launched a long-term study of the
biological impact of an IED blast that thrusts a vehicle into the air. The most
vulnerable body parts are those already in contact with the inside surfaces of a
vehicle."It’s your feet, your butt in the seat, and to some extent your back,"
said Randy Coates, the civilian engineer who directed the Army project, which is
based at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.To study a blast’s effect, the Army
considered experimenting with crash-test dummies, the biometric mannequins used
by engineers to improve automotive safety. But crash-test dummies have
limitations: They enable researchers to collect data only on front, rear and
side collisions common in traffic accidents, not from explosions beneath a
vehicle.When cadaver experiments confirmed that a crash-test dummy couldn’t
replicate battlefield wounds, the Army set out to create a mannequin that could
show the effects of explosions. The project required experiments involving more
than a hundred cadavers and included researchers from nine universities.In
addition to building the blast mannequin, the Army is using cadavers to obtain
data to develop a virtual dummy for computer simulations.Donated bodies are not
obliterated in explosions, Coates said. But the blasts do break bones and snap
spines. In an experiment witnessed by a Reuters reporter this year, two bodies
wired to 100 biosensors flailed violently during an explosion and came to rest
slumped, but intact.Army policy requires that body donors or next of kin consent
to the blast experiments. But records reviewed by Reuters show that the bodies
or body parts of 34 people were shipped to the military without donor
permission.Mind-boggling:In 18 of the 34 cases, the donor consent forms neither
mentioned nor offered any warning language about potential military
experiments.In the remaining 16 instances, the consent form presented an option
to allow military and other violent experiments. Twelve of the 16 families
explicitly rejected violent experiments. Four made no choice. All 16 were
shipped to the Army anyway.Among those shipped to the military were Nancy
Culver’s son and Marla Yale’s grandfather. "Oh, no. Oh, no," Culver said when a
Reuters reporter told her that the right arm of her son, Timothy Smith, was
detached and used for a military experiment against her wishes. She donated his
body two days after he took his own life in late 2012. "I wanted something good
to come of this," she said.Marla Yale recalled watching grandfather Kurt
Hollstein sign a donor form two months before he died of cancer in 2013.
Hollstein, an Army veteran, was so angry about the health care he was provided
by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, she said, that on the consent form
he checked "No" to military experimentation.Yale learned what really happened to
her grandfather from Reuters."This is almost beyond belief that his entire body
went somewhere else without his permission, and especially to a place that he
absolutely did not want to be," she said. "To go to the Department of Defense is
absolutely mind-boggling."Who’s responsible?According to Army policy, "If it is
clear that a donor prohibited the contemplated use, then the donor’s cadaver
will not be used." The policy requires that authorization forms must explicitly
state that donors or next-of-kin agree that their bodies may be used in
explosions.But the consent forms the Army examines are not necessarily the same
ones signed by donors. In the BRC case, the Army said, the military reviewed
"heavily redacted forms or forms signed by an agent of BRC that indicated
consent."Army officials said their first indication that something was amiss
came in January 2014, after law enforcement authorities searched BRC. Coates,
who oversaw the military project, said experiments were halted immediately. An
Army safety officer then traveled to Arizona to compare the documents the
military reviewed with those kept by BRC. In at least 34 cases, the forms did
not match, records show.Coates said that the Army acted in good faith because it
believed the consent forms it received were valid. "The Army was a victim of BRC
business practices," he said.Even so, the Army said in a statement that it still
relies on brokers to accurately represent the wishes of donors and does not
review the original consent forms before experiments begin.Amending consent:BRC
records also show that in at least two cases, consent forms were amended after
the donor died.In each case, records show, an elderly widow agreed to
countermand a husband’s written instructions that his body not be subjected to
explosive military experiments. Both widows made the change after being
contacted by BRC, donor case files show.In an interview with Reuters, one of the
widows, Dona Patrick, said she didn’t fully grasp what she had agreed to: that
husband Conrad’s head and spine would be severed and shipped to one of the
universities conducting the military experiments, his case file shows. The call
from BRC came less than 48 hours after her husband died, "at a time when you are
susceptible to anything just to get it out of your mind," she said.Patrick said
yes to the BRC caller because Conrad’s "soul was already gone, and the body was
nothing," she said. "Probably now if they would have called me, I would have
said ‘no.’ But then, I didn’t know what to do."BRC recorded the conversation for
legal reasons and quality assurance.On the call, the BRC employee asked: As next
of kin, do you agree to amend the consent form to allow "special non-medical
projects that could involve exposures to destructive forces – for example,
impacts, crashes, ballistic injuries and blasts" involving "agencies such as the
military"?Patrick, her voice quavering, said, "Yes, I do.""Excellent," the body
broker replied. "That takes care of everything."
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February 20, 2021
We are generating the list from each ward
Mumbai: Shopkeepers in the city are facing a challenge in finding alternative
carry bags following the plastic ban. In its bid to help shopkeepers, the
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be uploading a list of
manufacturers of paper bags, jute bags and biodegradable plastic for each ward.
BMC officials stated that within two days, around 100 manufacturers of
alternative bags have approached them and the civic body is expecting more
manufacturers in the coming week."We have been communicated that the shopkeepers
are facing the problem of alternatives to plastic bags. As such we will be
releasing the list of manufacturers, who could supply OEM Plastic Injection Molding Parts
Supplier cloth bags, paper bags, jute bags and even biodegradable plastic
bags. We are generating the list from each ward, so that shopkeepers can access
information in a click," said Nidhi Chaudhari, deputy municipal commissioner,
working on the planning process of implementation of plastic ban in the
city.Following the state government’s notification to the municipal corporations
last Friday, in which it directed local bodies to come up with implementation
plans for the plastic ban and for disposing the existing stock of ban items, the
BMC has decided to install collection points in market areas of all wards,
including the BMC markets. "The full list of the sites will be finalised this
week, however we have zeroed in on famous market places like Crawford, Colaba,
the Linking Road, Chembur, Mulund and Borivali market among others. We will also
be conducting awareness drives in these areas. As such, there will be at least
one collection point in each ward," added Ms Chaudhari. BMC officials stated
that it was also giving shopkeepers a month’s time for getting rid of all the
banned items, after which it will start checking the shops and markets.Meanwhile
activists have highlighted concerns over the recycling process post the disposal
of existing stock by shopkeepers and customers. "At some instances, it has been
found that even the segregated waste collected from societies is dumped at the
landfill sites by the cleaning workers. As such, it is important that there
should be a strict and proper disposal of the plastic items collected. The civic
bodies should also make the recycling plans public so that NGOs or other
organisations who are working on the waste recycling could come forward and
contact them," said Rohit Joshi, a Thane based activist.What is bannedProducts
manufactured from plastic and thermocol (polystyrene) like disposable dish or
bowl, cups, plates, glasses, fork, spoons, containers, straw, non-woven
polypropene bags, pouches, all of which are commonly used for packaging food
items including liquids and food grains.What is not bannedPlastic material used
for packaging medicines and drugs have been exempted from this ban. Plastic bags
for packaging milk, bags of thickness less than 50 microns have been permitted
to remain in use.
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February 03, 2021
The new emphasis was confirmed Friday
The new emphasis was confirmed Friday by a person with knowledge of the project.
San Francisco: Apple may not become an automaker, but it still wants to develop
its own self-driving technology. The iPhone-maker's automotive project, long an
open secret in Silicon Valley, is shifting to focus on creating the technology
for an autonomous vehicle that doesn't require a human driver. The new direction
apparently doesn't foreclose the possibility that Apple might someday build its
own car, but it opens the door to partnering with other car companies.The new
emphasis was confirmed Friday by a person with knowledge of the project, after
the New York Times reported that Apple is "rethinking" its automotive strategy.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to
discuss the project.Apple had no official comment Friday and has consistently
declined to confirm its automotive ambitions. But Elon Musk, the chief executive
of electric-car maker Tesla, has said that Apple has hired hundreds of
engineers, including some from Tesla, to work on an Plastic Injection Industry Part
Molding factory automotive project. Local officials in the San Francisco Bay
Area say Apple contacted them last year about using a former naval base that's
been converted into an automotive testing ground.
More recently, the New York
Times and Bloomberg News have reported that Apple's initial efforts to design
its own car have suffered from management turnover and technical delays.
Industry experts say building a car is an incredibly complex challenge for any
company, even one with the engineering prowess of Apple. Automobile manufacture
also poses more regulatory and legal issues than building an iPhone or a
computer.But the tech industry has increasingly ventured into the automotive
sector, where Apple, Google and other firms are competing to develop software
that can help manage - at least - the information and entertainment systems
inside today's vehicles. Google has made no secret that it's also working on
self-driving technology, but says that it is more likely to partner with an
established automaker.Analysts say tech companies want to be involved in
automobiles because they want people to keep using their products and services,
even while driving. Meanwhile, most of the leading auto-makers have opened
research labs in Silicon Valley, in part to work on the software and the
physical systems - including sensors and other components - that are needed for
autonomous driving.Uber, the giant ride-sharing company, has also hired experts
in robotics and has begun testing cars with self-driving capabilities.
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January 29, 2021
She says that people are not well aware
When we were in school, we were all taught from the very beginning of our
environmental studies classes that consumption of plastic is not good for nature
but we still continue to do it. The environmental crisis is worsening by the day
as we keep on using single-use plastic products. But, what if we knew how to use
these plastics more effectively and productively?In a unique turn of events,
India has decided to take a U-turn on its plan of banning single-use plastics
completely. As a result, the national capital on October 2 will not be imposing
the ban either. Instead, the government plans to enforce the existing rules
against storing, manufacturing and using single-use plastic products such as
polythene bags more strictly and try to educate people about the sensible
plastic usage through campaigns. Supporting the move Shashank Singh, a Delhiite
says that small plastic bags are very helpful for buying small items as these
are used to store the items easily and every time one goes to a shop it is
almost impossible for them to remember to carry cloth bags. He says, "I have
seen many street vendors packing food for their customers in these small bags as
they can’t afford to buy cloth-based bags. So these small items are actually
doing a great job for many people, yes the impact of using them is not good but
if we ban them immediately it might create problems for a lot of people by
becoming a sudden disruption."Dipali Sharma, another city resident thinks that
the idea of educating people on the bad effects of plastic usage is definitely
the first step to take.
She says that people are not well aware of the fact why
plastic is not good for us and further explains, "Drinking water in a plastic
bottle is not really good for our body so we should start avoiding plastic
bottles at home and drink water in a glass bottle instead. Also, the ban of
every such item is important as they are use and throw materials and if these
won’t be banned people will continue using them."Whereas Palak Singh comments
that the use of plastic might not be the best option but some items that Indians
buy on a daily basis requires these plastics such as milk and says, "Everyone
cannot afford a China Automotive
Interior Injection Plastic Part Molding tetra pack based milk carton as the
price is double as compared to the normal milk packet we buy. We should first
think of new ways to eliminate plastic from daily use which is affordable."The
Delhi urban development department is already ready to launch a massive campaign
in the capital to discourage people from using plastic products.
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