Texas lawmaker moves to outlaw medical research on corpses without consent after NBC News investigation
A Texas lawmaker horrified by an NBC News investigation into a medical school that profited from the bodies of the poor and vulnerable moved this week to ban the practice, introducing a bill that would make it illegal in the state to perform medical research on a corpse without explicit consent.
The proposal is a direct response to NBC News' 'Dealing the Dead' series, which exposed how the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth took hundreds of unclaimed bodies from Dallas and Tarrant counties, cut them up and leased them out to medical device companies, other universities and the Army. Reporters discovered dozens of families who said they would have claimed their loved ones' bodies and given them proper funerals if they had been told. Some were still searching for their relatives, unaware that they had died.
Sen. Tan Parker, who filed the bill in the Texas Legislature on Wednesday, said he had no idea what the Health Science Center had been doing until he saw NBC News' investigation in September. The findings outraged and disgusted him, he said.
'Every Texan deserves dignity in life and death, and the right of families to decide how their loved ones' remains are handled must be protected,' Parker, a Republican whose district includes portions of Dallas and Tarrant counties, said in a statement. 'No family should ever have to worry that the remains of their loved ones could be taken, dismembered, and leased out without any effort to notify the next of kin. This legislation puts an end to that practice once and for all, ensuring Texas law upholds the highest ethical standards and respects the dignity of every individual.'
In addition to the legislation, NBC News' reporting has sparked sweeping changes: The Health Science Center suspended its body donation program, fired the officials who led it and said it would stop accepting unclaimed bodies. Boston Scientific and other medical device and research companies, as well as the Army, said they would rethink their arrangements with the center and take steps to ensure they would not use unclaimed bodies in the future. Members of Congress sought answers, and officials in Tarrant County adopted a policy to ensure unclaimed bodies were treated with dignity.
The reporting also brought answers to families who had been left in the dark about what happened to their loved ones. Tim Leggett learned from NBC News last year that his brother Dale, 71, a World War II history buff, had died alone at a hospital in Tarrant County in May 2023. Without notifying Leggett, the county medical examiner provided his brother's body to the Health Science Center, which shipped his remains out of state to a for-profit medical education company. He applauded Parker's effort to ban the practice.
'There is right and wrong, especially when it comes to how we treat each other, whether it's while we're alive or deceased,' said Leggett, who was finally able to obtain his brother's ashes after seeing his name on a list NBC News and Noticias Telemundo published. 'This bill is definitely another good step in making sure this doesn't happen to any other families.'
Leggett and nearly a dozen other families learned what happened to their relatives from NBC News and Noticias Telemundo reporters. Six of those families found their relative's name on the list the news outlets published.
Kimberly Patman, who was told by NBC News that the body of her ex-husband, Victor Honey, was cut up and leased out, also said she welcomed Parker's bill.
'I am very thankful for them moving forward so that what happened to Victor and the other individuals won't ever happen again,' Patman said.
Honey, a homeless Army veteran who struggled with mental illness, died in Dallas in 2022 without anyone notifying his family. The Health Science Center then dissected his body and leased parts to two medical companies and the Army. After learning of his death last spring, his family buried his cremated remains at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery. The experience shook Patman, along with Honey's adult children and siblings.
'You can't fully grasp the impact unless it has happened to your family,' Patman said.
Parker said his bill would prohibit the donation of an unclaimed body to a medical school or private body broker unless the person agreed to the donation before their death — or if permission is given by next of kin.
If adopted, the measure would prevent a repeat of the Health Science Center's actions.
It would also make Texas one of the few states to clearly ban research on the unclaimed dead — those whose families can't afford to make funeral arrangements or can't be reached. The practice is legal in most states but is increasingly viewed as unethical by anatomists and leaders in the body donation industry who say doctors and scientists should handle the dead with the same respect shown to living patients.
Officials in North Texas justified sending unclaimed bodies to the Health Science Center by saying the deals saved local governments the cost of burials and cremations, helped train students and doctors and supported lifesaving research. But NBC News found that medical examiner's offices in Dallas and Tarrant counties, and staff at the Health Science Center, failed to contact relatives who were reachable before declaring the bodies unclaimed.
The University of North Texas Health Science Center built a flourishing business using unclaimed corpses.
When Aurimar Iturriago Villegas was murdered, her corpse became a commodity in the U.S. body trade.
Libero Marinelli's journey from a hospital to a body broker shows the perils of an unregulated industry.
A list of the people whose unclaimed bodies went to the University of North Texas Health Science Center.
A disgraced chiropractor found a new job selling bodies, then was accused of mishandling them.
Through thousands of pages of documents and data obtained via public records requests, reporters determined that Dallas and Tarrant counties sent about 2,350 unclaimed bodies to the Health Science Center since 2019, more than 830 of which — advertised as being of 'the highest quality found anywhere in the U.S.' — were selected for dissection and study. The center charged medical device and training companies $649 for heads, $330 for a pair of feet and $1,400 for a whole body. The body trade helped bring the center about $2.5 million a year.
The dead included military veterans, people who struggled with drug addiction and mental illness and a young murder victim; while some had fallen out of touch with their relatives, their families said they loved and missed them and would have come forward to claim their body if they'd known they were dead.
After NBC News shared its findings with the Health Science Center, the school offered condolences to families and acknowledged the problems reporters uncovered. 'As a result of the information brought to light through your inquiries, it has become clear that failures existed in the management and oversight of The University of North Texas Health Science Center's Willed Body Program,' the center said in a statement last year.
Parker's bill, which could be subject to revisions as it makes its way through the Legislature, will next be debated in a Texas Senate committee. Parker's office said it was working to get a companion bill filed in the Texas House and hoped to win bipartisan support.
Eli Shupe, a bioethicist at the University of Texas at Arlington, said Parker's bill would herald a 'landmark shift' in protecting corpses from misuse. Shupe began speaking against the Health Science Center's use of unclaimed bodies when she first learned of the practice just over three years ago.
'Texas would essentially go from a state that's recently been singled out for ethically unsavory practices to a model for others to follow,' she said. 'Very few states have legislation like this. We would be a real leader in the country.'This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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