cchris

After reading this I can't help but wonder what else these "people" have done simply for their own experiments or whatever the fuck they are doing.
It just comes down to money.


LINK TO STORY
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£10 bounty paid for removal of 100,000 brains
By Helen Rumbelow


UP TO 100,000 brains were illegally retained for decades without the knowledge of the dead person’s relatives, a government inquiry revealed yesterday.
More than 20,000 of these illicitly obtained brains are still in storage for use in medical research, but tens of thousands of others were destroyed after they were dissected by medical students or had served their purpose in experiments.

A two-year investigation by Jeremy Metters, the HM Inspector of Anatomy, has exposed a widespread collusion between coroners, pathologists and medical researchers in breaking the law.

The Isaacs Report, named after Cyril Isaacs, from Manchester whose case led to the inquiry, was published by the Department of Health yesterday. It revealed that the practice had been common for years in several cities, including Manchester.

The pathologist would extract the brain, the coroner’s office would alert the researchers that they had a good specimen and the mortician would be paid £10 to leave it on a slab of ice to be collected by researchers within hours, all without the knowledge of the dead person’s families.

None of the doctors and coroners involved can be prosecuted because the 1961 Human Tissue Act, which covers this area, is too weak.

A Bill changing the Act to make it a criminal offence with heavy fines for those taking organs for research without consent is due to be passed by Parliament this summer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, said.

Although the majority of brains were wanted by researchers because the deceased had a mental illness such as depression, almost as many brains were taken from healthy people for comparison.

Dr Metters said that no one will ever know the true extent of the malpractice, but a helpline has been set up for those who had suspicions that a relative’s brain had been illegally removed.

“Anyone who had a post-mortem from 1961 to 1999 could have had their brain removed without consent,” Dr Metters said. “The Human Tissue Act was consistently disregarded . . . the objections of relatives widely ignored,” he said.

“Covert research on retained brains is offensive to many relatives, particularly those of faith groups, who ask why they had no opportunity to voice their objections.”

The Isaacs Report differs from the Alder Hey Inquiry into the organs retained from children who died in hospital because it deals with adult deaths outside hospital.

The breach of the Human Tissue Act is much more serious than in the cases of children’s organs retained after a hospital post-mortem examination, because in those cases consent forms were often signed, albeit without the clear understanding of families.

Dr Metters found five areas of the country where brains were being extracted from corpses solely for the needs of researchers who wanted hundreds for their experiments.

North Manchester and Cambridge were among the districts where pathologists were routinely extracting brains when there was no need for them to do so to establish the cause of death.

In tens of thousands of other cases, the brain was legitimately removed by the pathologist to establish the cause of death, but the doctor then broke the law by not returning the organ to the body for the funeral.

To try to establish how widespread the practice was, Dr Metters sent a questionnaire to 17 NHS trusts which had collections of a total of 23,000 brains. Some trusts failed to give full information, but Dr Metters concluded: “The consent of relatives was almost never sought.”

Before 1989 none of them routinely obtained consent for the retention of organs, from 1990 to the present only two said that they routinely asked for consent.

Six trusts said that they “never” asked the consent of relatives before 1990, and five said that they never asked for consent after 1990. In many cases, the trusts said that this practice continued with the full consent of the coroner.

“Some doctors will defend this practice by saying that the ends justify the means, but I don’t agree, because some doctors were doing excellent work but following the law about consent,” Dr Metters said.

He also condemned the practice of researchers paying morticians to deliver brains. “Whether it is legitimate or not, I think it is questionable because where payment is made there is a question of incentive,” he said.

Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of Sane, said that while she welcomed the report she hoped that there would not be a backlash against donating organs for research.

“Our concern is that the emotions surrounding this and previous inquiries have already almost killed post-mortem research into illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression,” she said. “There is an acute shortage of brain tissue and many of those carrying out the research feel so stigmatised that they have ceased investigations.”

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dragon2fire

o thats just worng

billege

ARTelevision started this same thread yesterday. I seem to see some differences in the source article. Now I don't know which one is accurate.

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I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence:
"My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend."

cchris

Humble apologies.

I did the Search option and the subject matter was language estranged.

This place keeps me on my toes.

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There's a fine line between participation and mockery