This article is part of “Dealing with the dead” a series that investigates the use of unclaimed bodies for medical research.
The president of the University of North Texas Health Science Center will resign, four months after an NBC News investigation found the center had failed to contact families before using their loved ones’ bodies for medical research. .
In an announcement Monday, the University of North Texas System Board of Regents said it had accepted the resignation of Sylvia Trent-Adams. The three-paragraph statement, which praised Trent-Adams’ “dedication, integrity and respect,” did not mention the NBC News reporting or include a reason for her departure.
In an email in response to questions, Health Sciences Center spokesman Andy North said Trent-Adams “has indicated that his reasons for this departure are personal.” Trent-Adams did not respond to a message seeking comment.
In September, NBC News published the first installment of a year-long investigation into the Fort Worth-based Health Sciences Center’s practice of cutting up, studying and renting the bodies of the unclaimed dead: those whose Relatives often cannot be easily located, or whose relatives cannot afford cremation or burial.
Over a five-year period, the center had received about 2,350 unclaimed bodies from Dallas and Tarrant counties and used many of them to train medical students; others he dissected and leased to outside groups, including major biotech companies and the U.S. military, helping raise about $2.5 million a year for the center. This was done without the consent of the dead and, in many cases, without the knowledge of any of the survivors.
Just days before the NBC News investigation was published, after reporters shared detailed findings, the Health Sciences Center announced it was suspending its body donation program, firing the officials who ran it and hiring a consulting firm to study program operations.
In emails to students and faculty, Trent-Adams said the report had revealed “a lack of sufficient controls and oversight” of the center’s Willed Body Program, which she said “had not met the standards of respect, care and professionalism that we demand.” .” He said the center’s leaders were unaware, for example, that the cadaver program routinely shipped unclaimed remains, including those of U.S. military veterans, across state lines.
In the days that followed, Trent-Adams received several messages from concerned students, staff and alumni, according to emails obtained through a public records request. In one message, a Health Sciences Center medical student wrote that he had been taught that “consent is at the forefront of the practice of medicine,” but that NBC News reports had “questioned whether the administration was practicing this in our country.” academic anatomy laboratory.
“It makes me sick to my stomach to think that we dissect bodies without consent,” another student wrote to Trent-Adams. “We referred to them as ‘donors’ because that’s what we thought they were, not indigent individuals who had no say in the matter.”
Many of those whose bodies were used by the Health Sciences Center were described as having no next of kin, but NBC News was able to quickly locate several families who were angry and heartbroken upon learning from reporters that their relatives had been dissected. and studied without permission. . In October, the news outlet published the names of hundreds of people whose unclaimed bodies were sent to the center, prompting more survivors to come forward. In total, journalists have identified more than 25 families who found out weeks, months or years later that a relative was used for the investigation.
As more survivors came forward, the Health Sciences Center said in a statement in September that officials were “working to connect with the families and extend our deepest apologies.”
Abigail Willson was among those searching for answers. He learned of his mother’s death and donation to the Health Sciences Center from the list published by NBC News. When Willson and her family went to the center in October to request more information, she said a staff member told them Trent-Adams wanted to meet with them.
“We sat there for 45 minutes and the university president never came,” Willson said. “Then they took our information to give it to her and she never called.”
The fallout continued in November when the Texas Funeral Services Commission sent a letter to Trent-Adams ordering the center to immediately stop the practice of liquefying corpses, which the commission said was prohibited by state law. The center defended the legality of the practice commonly known as water cremation, but said it had stopped performing it the day NBC News published its investigation in September.
The Health Sciences Center had been receiving unclaimed bodies since at least 2019, three years before Trent-Adams was hired as president after a career in the military. She previously served as acting surgeon general of the United States during President Donald Trump’s first term.
His last day at the Health Sciences Center will be January 31.
Tyler Kingkade and Jon Schuppe contributed.
