An NBC Action News Investigation has uncovered an approximately $1,000,000 deal between KU Medical Center’s Willed Body Program and a for profit cadaver entrepreneur that involved over a thousand bodies with no records of where hundreds of bodies were sent.
“Their whole thing was helping other people,” said Chris Rodenbaugh, the oldest daughter of Helen and Bob Morris of Kansas City, Kan.
The Morris's are among the thousands of people who donated their bodies to the University of Kansas Medical School. "I just figured mother and daddy would go to KU and stay at KU," Rodenbaugh said.
According to records obtained by NBC Action News, most cadavers donated to KUMC in 2008 didn’t stay at KU. So far this year, out of 244 people who donated their remains to the University of Kansas, only 62 actually went to KU programs.
In exchange for about $1,100 each, KU sent 127 of the cadavers to other institutions, mostly in other states, yielding more than $137,000.
“It's not a sale of a body,” says Dale Abrahamson, chairman of anatomy and cell biology at the University of Kansas Medical Center which runs the program. “It is a fee that we charge for the use of the body for medical education and research.”
Money for Bodies?
KU’s willed body program is part of the University of Kansas Medical Center. The state split the University of Kansas Hospital into a separate entity from KUMC in 1998.
The university says it never makes a profit, but acknowledges until 2005, it allowed a controversial independent cadaver middleman to set his own prices for delivering KU bodies to other institutions.
KU says all money it receives in cadaver fees goes towards cadaver preparation, salaries, and costs within their willed body program.
The controversial cadaver firm KU used for at least 12-years was sued by donors' families at a university in Louisiana. The class action lawsuit alleges the private firm, National Anatomical Service, Inc., bought bodies from Tulane University and sold them to "the Army to be used to test footware (sic) on land mines."
Under the Freedom of Information Act, NBC Action News obtained the Army blast test plan which confirmed the Army cadaver test.
Business Owner Disputes Claims of Profits
The book Body Brokers accuses the cadaver business's owner, John Vincent Scalia, the same middleman for KU, of making thousands of dollars in profit on each Tulane cadaver sold to the Army.
Scalia acknowledged transporting the bodies from Tulane, but denied published reports that he made thousands in profits.
Scalia declined to say how much he charged, citing a judge’s gag order.
KU acknowledged in a 2004 article in the Lawrence Journal World that it had used Scalia to transfer 60 bodies in 2003. What KU didn't say, and wasn't known publically until our open records request was that according to its own records, John Vincent Scalia’s firm transferred 1,287 bodies from KU over a 12-year period.
For each of the cadavers, KU says it charged Scalia about $800. $800 a cadaver multiplied by 1,287 bodies adds up to over a million dollars.
Abrahamson acknowledged KU never had any idea what Scalia was charging his customers for KU’s bodies, and said the lack on information didn’t bother him.
There is no evidence any of the bodies KU provided Scalia were used in the Army land mine tests.
"We know that they were sent to other schools"
The initial records KU provided indicated 395 of the 1,287 bodies transferred through Scalia ended up in medical schools in the Caribbean. An open records request indicated KU had no record of where Scalia’s firm delivered 890 of the remaining bodies.
Abrahamson said he contacted many schools confirming they received KUMC bodies from Scalia, but he says he doesn’t know what the schools paid.
Scalia had initially declined to be interviewed in connection to our investigation, but when we contacted him again with what we’d found he changed his mind.
“They have to have a donor form for every cadaver that’s given to someone,” Scalia said questioning why the university has so many missing records. “I don’t understand how there could be 800 cadavers missing. I don’t understand why they don’t have these records.” Scalia said. “This is a mystery to me.”
When NBC Action News pointed out that KU's records didn't account for the destinations of more than 800 bodies, Abrahamson emphasized the school’s belief they went to teach students.
“Again, we know that they were sent to other schools,” Abrahamson reaffirmed.
