February 2020 – Article 2:
The increasing demand for harvested body parts often complicates—and often prevents—coroners from determining a cause of death.
A recent, extensive article in the Los Angeles Times highlights a number of cases where questionable death investigations were thwarted because critical tissues and organs had been removed before a thorough investigation could be conducted.
The cases included possible homicides, highway accidents, deaths after surgeries, drug overdoses, and even a death that followed a fight with a police officer.
Autopsies Being Hampered
One incident involved the suspicious death of a 69-year-old woman. Before her death, police had already been called to her home several times because of reports of possible abuse.
By the time a coroner’s investigator was able to examine her 70-pound body, the bones from her legs and arms were gone. Also missing were large patches of skin from her back.
In another case, an 18-year-old high school athlete sat down and died while working out with his team. Because he was a registered donor, the family could not stop harvesters from taking over.
Despite pleas from his father to wait for an autopsy to be performed first, the harvesting company took bones, tissues, and his son’s heart for its valves, which are sold as medical devices.
As a result, the coroner was not able to determine the cause of death.
“You can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to learn that they can’t complete the autopsy because they took your son’s heart,” the boy’s father told the paper.
The article says the case is one of dozens of death investigations across the country, including more than two dozen in Los Angeles and San Diego counties, that were complicated or upended when transplantable parts were taken before a coroner’s autopsy was performed.
“In multiple cases, coroners have had to guess at the cause of death. Wrongful-death and medical malpractice lawsuits have been thwarted by early tissue harvesting,” the article says.
Bone and Tissue as well as Organs Harvested
While public attention is generally focused on organ harvesting, there also is a demand for skin, bone, fat, ligaments, and other tissues not usually associated with life-threatening conditions.
Those body parts fuel a booming industrial biotech market where a half-teaspoon of ground-up human skin is priced at $434. The material is used in cosmetic surgery to plump lips and posteriors, fill cellulite dimples, and enhance male genitalia.
An 8-by-10 inch patch of skin sold for other cosmetic surgeries and wound care can fetch as much as $16,500.
No wonder there’s a rush to harvest organs, bones and tissues.
While there are greedy organ harvesters in every state, local experts claim Georgia does not share California’s problem of foiled autopsies.
Both Fulton County Chief Medical Examiner Jan Gorniak and Cobb County Chief Medical Examiner Christopher Gulledge told Georgia Right to Life (GRTL) that they are not aware of any cases where an autopsy was complicated, or rendered impossible, because organs and tissues were removed.
They said Georgia law requires harvesters to contact the local coroner before any body parts are taken if there is any suspicion that an autopsy investigation is required.
That may well prevent abuses; but, from my perspective, that process places a great deal of power in the hands of those whose primary motive is making money from harvesting.
For this and related reasons, pro-life advocates are encouraged to become familiar with the entire donation issue, especially the threat of organ harvesting before a person is actually dead.(See GRTL “Wanted Dead or Alive Essential Terminology” and http://www.grtl.org/?q=Dead-Or-Alive-Organ-Donation-Things-Consider).
Another fact to consider is that most hospitals consider being a registered donor legally binding, so organ retrieval must take place regardless of a family’s wishes.
Anynone wishing to cancel their donor registration can do so here. A new driver’s license may be required.
Source: latimes.com.
By Wayne DuBois
Georgia Right to Life
Media Relations Advisor