UCLA sued over its Willed Body program

Monday, November 4, 1996

MEDICAL CENTER:

Families claim university disposed of cadavers in an undignified
manner By Phillip Carter

Daily Bruin Staff

Attorneys representing the families of nearly 18,000
participants in UCLA’s Willed Body program filed suit against the
university last Thursday, claiming the cadavers were handled
"without dignity" and dumped into the Pacific Ocean along with
other waste from the School of Medicine.

"Not only did they not cremate them in a dignified manner, but
they were cremated with multiple bodies and other items such as
waste products from the School of Medicine," attorney Mike Arias
said. "To make matters even worse, not only were the remains not
disposed of in a dignified manner, they were disposed of in garbage
cans at sea."

Between 1950 and 1993, the lawsuit says that UCLA cremated its
cadavers in groups, then dumped them in garbage drums containing
used medical supplies such as syringes and scalpels. The ashes were
then dumped in a variety of locations, including Santa Monica
Bay.

Some of the cadavers, the lawsuit further alleges, were also
used for "canoeing" ­ the practice of stuffing corpses with
other medical byproducts.

Arias said these practices ran contrary to the agreement made
between UCLA and the body donors, who were promised a dignified
cremation or burial in return for donating their bodies to
science.

"The families were promised when the bodies came in that the
remains would be disposed of in a dignified and humane manner,"
said James Terwilleger, vice provost for administration at the UCLA
School of Medicine. "It was clear that the remains would be
cremated unless the family wanted them back, and that the remains
would be treated with dignity upon disposal."

In their lawsuit, the families argue that UCLA consistently
breached their agreement with the donors’ families.

"We know that this is not the case (that UCLA treated the bodies
humanely)," Arias said.

The alleged dumping stopped in November 1993, when a
medical-waste container broke apart in Santa Monica Bay, revealing
a combination of ashes and used hospital debris inside.

David Saber, whose funeral-at-sea business was contracted by
UCLA to dispose of ashes, said he found "glass vials, gauze and a
rubber glove" in the ashes. Saber subsequently brought these
findings to light, notifying both the UCLA administration and local
news media.

At that time, a local environmental group was also looking into
allegations that UCLA had been illegally dumping into Santa Monica
Bay for 22 years. No results have come from those allegations or
the state investigation which followed them.

Medical Center administrators explained that the 1993 case
involved a contractor who was scattering ashes in the ocean in what
UCLA officials felt was a "dignified manner of burial."

However, UCLA officials claimed full responsibility for the
Willed Body program’s past problems, saying that measures had been
taken since 1993 to change the way bodies were handled.

"We took a number of steps ­ we changed the entire
administration and oversight of the Willed Body program,"
Terwilleger said. "We brought in a professor in the department of
neurobiology to oversee the program."

In addition, UCLA Medical Center officials shut down its
on-campus crematorium in the Center for Health Sciences and brought
in an independent contractor to handle the disposal of human
remains. Additionally, UCLA began a training program for its entire
medical-waste section to ensure that no slippages occurred.

Today, those measures remain in place and UCLA’s medical-waste
program has received a green light from California’s Department of
Health and Human Services.

"We came out with a 100 percent clean bill of health,"
Terwilleger said.

UCLA’s Willed Body program continues to operate as well,
providing cadavers to the School of Medicine for training of
medical students and surgical residents. Hospital officials said
that the corpses donated to UCLA through this program were used
solely for education ­ not research.

"They were not used for research purposes ­ there are other
types of research involving human tissue, and we procure for those
in other ways," Terwilleger said.