The University of North Texas Health Science Center built a flourishing business dissecting, studying and exporting hundreds of unclaimed corpses without consent and often without any relatives' knowledge, an NBC News investigation found. In the name of scientific advancement, clinical education and fiscal expediency, the bodies of the destitute in the Dallas-Fort Worth region have been routinely collected from hospital beds, nursing homes and homeless encampments and used for training or research. About 2,350 unclaimed bodies have been given to the Health Science Center since 2019 under agreements with Dallas and Tarrant counties. The center selected more than 830 of them for dissection and study. Some had families who were looking for them. NBC News reporters examined dozens of cases and identified 12 in which families learned weeks, months or years later that relatives had been provided to the medical school. In one case, Dallas County marked a man’s body as unclaimed and gave it to the Health Science Center, even as his loved ones filed a missing person report and actively searched for him. In another, a man learned of his stepmother’s death and transfer to the center after a real estate agent called about selling her house. Five of the families found out what happened from NBC News.
Health Science Center officials had defended their practices, arguing that using unclaimed bodies was essential for training future doctors. But on Friday, after NBC News shared its findings with the center about its failures to treat the dead and their families with dignity, the center announced it was suspending the body donation program and firing the officials who led it. Read the investigation by Mike Hixenbaugh, Jon Schuppe and Susan Carrolland see five key takeaways from the reporting. |