This article is part of “Treating the dead” A series that investigates the use of unwanted bodies for medical research.
A Texas legislator horrified by an NBC news investigation in a medical school that benefited from the bodies of the poor and vulnerable moved this week to prohibit the practice, presenting a bill that would make illegal in the state to carry out investigations Doctors about a corpse without explicit consent.
The proposal is a direct response to the “Dealing the Dead” series of NBC News, which presented how the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Fort Worth brought hundreds of unresated bodies of the Dallas and Tarrant counties, He cut them and leased them to medical devices, other universities and the army. The journalists discovered dozens of families who said they would have claimed the bodies of their loved ones and gave them the right funerals if they had been told. Some were still looking for their relatives, without realizing that they had died.
The Senator Tan Parker, who presented the bill in the Texas Legislature on Wednesday, said he had no idea what the Health Sciences Center had been doing until he saw the NBC News investigation in September. The findings outraged him and disliked him, he said.
“All Texans deserve dignity in life and death, and the right of families to decide how the remains of their loved ones must be protected,” said Parker, a Republican whose district includes parts of Dallas County and Tarrant, in a statement. “No family should have to worry that the remains of their loved ones can be taken, dismembered and leased without any effort to notify family members. This legislation ends that practice once and for all, to ensure that the Texas Law maintains the highest ethical standards and respects the dignity of each individual. “
In addition to the legislation, NBC News reports have caused radical changes: the Health Sciences Center suspended its body donation program, dismissed the officials who directed it and said they would stop accepting unresated organisms. Boston Scientific and other companies of medical and research devices, as well as the army, said they would rethink their arrangements with the center and take measures to ensure that they would not use unresated bodies in the future. The members of the Congress sought answers, and Tarrant County officials adopted a policy to ensure that unresated agencies were treated with dignity.
The report also brought answers to the families that had remained in the dark about what happened to their loved ones. Tim Leggett learned NBC News last year that his brother Dale, 71, a fan of World War II, had died alone in a hospital in Tarrant County in May 2023. Without notifying Leggett , County’s forensic doctor provided his brother’s body to health health. Science Center, who sent his remains outside the State to a medical education company for profit. It applauded Parker’s effort to prohibit practice.
“There is correct and incorrect, especially when it comes to how we are treated, either while we are alive or deceased,” said Leggett, who finally could obtain his brother’s ashes after seeing his name on a list of NBC News and news Telemundo published. “This bill is definitely another good step to ensure that this does not happen to other families.”
Leggett and almost a dozen other families learned what happened to their relatives of the NBC News and News Telemundo reporters. Six of those families found the name of their relative on the list published by the media.
Kimberly Patman, whom NBC News told her that her ex -husband’s body, Victor Honey, was cut and leased, also said she welcomed Parker’s invoice.
“I am very grateful for them to advance so that what happened to Victor and the other people will never happen again,” said Patman.
Honey, a homeless army veteran who fought with a mental illness, died in Dallas in 2022 without anyone notifying his family. The Health Sciences Center then dissected his body and leased pieces to two medical companies and the army. After finding out the past spring, his family buried his remains cremated in the National Cemetery of Dallas-Fort Worth. The experience shook Patman, along with Honey’s adult children and brothers.
“You cannot completely understand the impact unless your family has happened,” said Patman.
Parker said that his bill would prohibit the donation of an agency not claimed to a medical school or a private organism corridor unless the person agreed the donation before his death, or if the relatives give permission.
If adopted, the measure would avoid repetition of the actions of the Center for Health Sciences.
It would also make Texas one of the few states to clearly prohibit research on the dead unresated, those whose families cannot afford to make funeral arrangements or cannot be achieved. The practice is legal in most states, but it is increasing It shows living patients.
The officials in northern Texas justified sending unresated agencies to the Center for Health Sciences saying that the agreements saved to local governments the cost of burials and cremations, helped to train students and doctors and supported the investigation of the life. But NBC News discovered that the offices of the Forensic Doctor in the Dallas and Tarrant counties, and the staff of the Health Sciences Center, could not contact relatives who could accessible before declaring the unresated bodies.
More than treating the dead ‘
Through thousands of documents and data pages obtained through requests from public records, journalists determined that Dallas and Tarant counties sent around 2,350 agencies not claimed to the Center for Health Sciences since 2019, more than 830 from which, announced as “the highest quality found anywhere than in the United States” – were selected for dissection and study. The center charged medical devices and companies of Training $ 649 for heads, $ 330 for a couple of feet and $ 1,400 for an entire body.
The dead included military veterans, people who fought with drug addiction and mental illness and a young murder victim; While some had been out of contact with their relatives, their families said they loved and missed them and would have presented themselves to claim their body if they had known that they were dead.
After NBC News shared its findings with the Center for Health Sciences, the school offered condolences to families and recognized the problems of the discovered reporters. “As a result of the information brought to light through their consultations, it has been clear that there were failures in the management and supervision of the Willed Body program of the Health Sciences Center of the University of North Texas,” said the center In a statement last year.
Parker’s bill, which could be subject to reviews as he advances through the legislature, will be discussed in a Texas Senate Committee. Parker’s office said he was working to present a complementary invoice in Texas’s house and expected bipartisan support.
Eli Shupe, Bioethics of the University of Texas in Arlington, said that Parker’s bill would announce a “historical change” in the protection of misuse corpses. Shupe began to speak against the use of the Center for Health Sciences of Uncreated Bodies when he first found out about the practice more than three years ago.
“Texas would essentially go from a state that has recently been indicated for ethically unpleasant practices to a model for others to follow,” he said. “Very few states have legislation like this. We would be a true leader in the country. “
