Respect for Research Cadavers

Families that donate the bodies of relatives to medical schools act, in their moment of grief, as public benefactors. In compliance with the wishes of the deceased, they help advance scientific knowledge and educate doctors in training. The school receiving the donation needs to recognize the importance of the gift, the sensitivity of the family and the obligation to treat the cadaver with respect.

UC Irvine’s medical school says an investigation of its Willed Body Program has found that cremated remains may have been returned to the wrong families and that some body parts donated for research may have been improperly sold. The director and sole employee of the program, who was paid only $33,000 a year for this important and sensitive job, denies any wrongdoing, but the university rightly has fired him.

UC Irvine, which fumbled its investigation of a fertility clinic scandal at its medical school four years ago, deserves credit this time for following up on discrepancies disclosed by a routine audit. But the school should have just as routinely duplicated its computer files. Because it did not, and because a computer virus damaged the program’s data, officials are now forced to scramble to determine whether families were given the wrong remains.

More oversight of the program is needed. So are increased compensation and qualifications for the next director, a position that requires an embalmer’s license and funeral director’s experience, qualifications that pay much more in the private sector.

The school needs to restore public confidence in a program that depends on the generosity of benefactors who wish to help others after their deaths. And it needs to reassure the families that autopsies and cremations will be done professionally and with respect.