Monday, September 11, 2006

GRUESOME CLAIM : STOLEN BODY PARTS ARE BEING IMPLANTED INTO PATIENTS WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE

The worldwide trade, worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, in human organs, bones and body parts just keeps on getting more twisted and more gruesome.

Now comes news from the UK that patients on the public health system have been implanted with body parts stolen illegally from corpses in the United States :
Several companies have set up in the UK to sell bone implants, ligaments and skin grafts to hospitals and clinics. It is illegal to pay donors for tissue but businesses are paid to harvest, store, process and distribute samples.

The imports have increased because of shortages of bones and other tissue in Britain due partly to restrictions imposed after the scandal over the unauthorised retention of organs at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool.

Despite the new international trade, the government organisation responsible for human tissue, the Human Tissue Authority, does not know which countries export skin, bone and ligaments to Britain or the quantities shipped in every year.
Go here to read the whole story.

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