How a grandmother's dead body donated to science was shockingly used for this!

Imagine discovering that the body of a loved one was donated to scien ce with the hope of advancing medical research, only to find out that it was instead used in an unusual and unsettling test.
This disturbing reality came to light for a man who had donated his mother’s body to a Resource Center believing it would aid Alzheimer's research. Instead, her body was sold to the U.S. Army for blast experiments, a violation of the family's explicit wishes.
Jim Stauffer cared for his mother, Doris, as she fought with dementia. He donated her brain to science when she passed away in 2013. It was hoped that her donation would contribute to Alzheimer's research. BRC, a body donation company that brokers such donations, picked up Doris's body and promised the family that it would be used for medical research. However, records reviewed by Reuters showed that BRC sold Doris's body to a taxpayer-funded research project for the U.S. Army, where it was used in blast experiments. Her brain was never used for Alzheimer's research.

It had been ten days since Doris Stauffer was cremated and her son, Jim, was receiving her remains without knowing the fate of his mother's body. Reuters said that BRC workers separated Doris's hand for cremation and sold the rest of the body to a U.S. Army research project. Her brain was never utilized for Alzheimer's research; it was used for an Army experiment to measure bomb damage. BRC sold bodies like Doris's for $5,893 each, violating U.S. Army policy by not obtaining proper consent. BRC's owner, Stephen Gore, pleaded guilty to fraud, claiming he tried to honor donors' wishes.

Unlike the body-brokering business, organ transplantation and the use of cadaver parts for medical repairs are strictly regulated. In comparison, the sale and purchase of human bodies that are not utilized for transplant purposes receive minimal regulation. According to University of Iowa law professor Sheldon F. Kurtz, "It is not illegal to sell a whole body or the parts of a body for research or education." The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, adopted by 46 states, does not address the issue of whole bodies or body parts for research or education.

There is no federal regulation on body brokers like BRC, which means the industry is growing without oversight. New York is the only state that tracks the industry in detail; the companies have shipped at least 100,000 body parts throughout the country between 2011 and 2014. The brokers acquire the cadavers free of charge from donors who think the remains are going to be used for science, earning a profit of thousands of dollars from each body. BRC charges full body for as much as 5,893 dollars, parts sold separately in 2013.

Families donating their loved ones' bodies to science deserve to be transparent and assured that their wishes will be honored. According to Michel Anteby, a Boston University business professor "We are in a complete vacuum. That’s a real problem because we are treating bodies as a potential commodity like any other."
The BRC case is not an isolated incident. In 2004, Tulane University disclosed that bodies donated to the school were used in military experiments without consent. Federal authorities began investigating BRC in 2011, uncovering a network of body brokers profiting from the sale of human remains.
Photo Credits: Reuters