Body donors: questions and answers

By The Associated Press

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Who provides the bodies?

All bodies supplied for research and other uses in the United States are donated. Under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, adopted by all 50 states, donors must provide informed consent to turn over their bodies or those of relatives. They are not paid, but some groups pay for the remains to be cremated. Unused portions of the body often are returned or cremated and the ashes returned.

How many donors are there?

No agency keeps reliable figures, but some experts say at least 20,000 bodies are donated each year. As many as 1 million procedures involving the transplantation of human tissue occur annually. Procedures vary from corneal transplants to the use of collagen from cadavers to puff up thin lips.

Who gets the bodies?

It depends. If relatives allow the removal of organs from a brain-dead person, they are taken very soon after death in a hospital. Time is of the essence in transplanting hearts and kidneys. After the organs are removed, the body is sent to a morgue and released to the family for burial. The use and handling of organ transplants are tightly regulated.

Cadavers are different. There are hundreds of nonprofit tissue banks that receive donated bodies from people who believe they will be used for transplants or scientific research. In some cases, the material is provided to for-profit businesses; in others, it finds its way to cosmetic surgeons for such procedures as lip enhancements and nose reconstruction.

Banks that provide material for transplants of any kind (there are about 1,200) must be listed with the federal government, but few states regulate them. Banks that provide tissue for scientific research, surgical training and similar uses are virtually unregulated. Some are run by mortuary owners.

About 150 willed-body programs run by universities and other entities supply medical schools with cadavers for anatomy classes, surgeon training and other academic needs. Unneeded body parts may be sent to other schools or even to for-profit companies for research. No federal laws govern such programs. In practice, donors often sign a contract giving the school broad leeway to use the body as it sees fit.
 
Laws:

• The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 bars the purchase of organs for transplant. However, tissue procurers can recover "reasonable" costs for obtaining and processing the material. There is no prohibition against buying or selling human tissue for research or medical education.

• The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act prohibits trafficking in donated human organs for profit.

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