Anatomy Lab Seemed Official, UCI Student Says

At the time, the anatomy class using cadavers donated to UC Irvine seemed perfectly legitimate.

The private lab and lecture was promoted to a crowded undergraduate biology class in spring 1998. It was taught by a foreign medical doctor taking graduate classes at the university. Both the lectures and labs took place in university buildings. An instructor’s letter of recommendation was offered to those who scored at the top of the class.

That’s what a former biology student said. She paid to enroll in the summer 1998 anatomy class that is now one focus in a wide-ranging probe into Irvine’s Willed Body Program.

“I don’t know how the school could not know,” said the soft-spoken student, who asked not to be identified. “It was on campus. A lot of students took the class. It was announced in a lecture during spring quarter.”

University administrators dispute none of that, qualifying it only by declaring that the class was unauthorized. But it went on unquestioned last summer because it looked official.

The Willed Body Program’s director, Christopher S. Brown of Tustin, has been fired amid allegations that he had financial ties to companies that profited off the program; he has denied any wrongdoing.

The university has been investigating irregularities in its Willed Body Program for three months and referred its findings to the Orange County district attorney. One area of concern is whether an outside company, Replica Notes, offered the private anatomy class on university grounds without paying for use of cadavers or classroom space.

While largely similar, the student’s and the university’s accounts of the class differ in the details.

William Parker, an associate executive vice chancellor at UCI, said people at the university did know about the class but did not think to question its propriety. UCI does not offer an anatomy lab for undergraduates.

“The class was visible,” Parker said. “The lecture took place at 4 o’clock . . . and then they adjourned to the anatomy lab to observe a dissection. There was an instructor from the graduate school. It would have looked perfectly legitimate. Chris Brown made the arrangements. He was a university employee. No one would have seen anything unusual.”

In addition to the class taken by the student, school officials now say that a second, overflow session was held at storefront offices of Replica, a note-taking service in the mall across the street from the main campus.

“There was a cadaver at Replica,” Parker said. “It was transported in the evening and brought back.”

The student said the class she took lasted four weeks. She recalled paying $280 to $300 in cash to Replica Notes for the class, plus $80 or so for a 2-inch-thick class packet. She scraped together money from her mother, financial aid and her job to pay for the opportunity. Parker said he has heard that the class cost between $175 and $300.

Stephen Warren Solomon, one of Brown’s attorneys, said that his client received “zero” compensation for the class and that a supervisor approved the venture.

“The information I have is: Not only did the university know about it, . . . the informational brochure for Replica’s MedBound program was reviewed prior to its distribution, and changes were made by an official at UCI,” Solomon said, “someone who is a supervisor to my client.”

Parker would not comment on that contention.

The man who pitched the class to students, Replica owner Jeffrey Frazier, used to own a mortuary transport company with Brown; he has not returned repeated calls seeking comment. The university contracted with that transport company, and Brown said he divested himself of his stake in it when he realized that he might have a conflict of interest.

Two afternoons a week, the student said, she and the other 100 to 125 people taking the two summer courses attended a lecture in which the instructor would discuss the functioning of the digestive system, for example. Pop quizzes and a final exam were part of the curriculum.

Later on, she said, students would enter a basement medical lab through a door propped open by a trash can. They would don lab coats and latex gloves, pick up scalpels and gather around a white-sheeted gurney--just as in medical school.

Then they would practice what they learned: prying open body cavities and removing organs, only to replace them later.

Parker estimates that the number of students taking the classes was lower. A class of 40 met eight times, he said, in the main lecture hall adjacent to Irvine Hall, where the deans and associate deans have their offices. Then it met a few hundred yards away for dissections in the basement laboratory of the medical school.

* POSITIVE RESPONSE

Callers have expressed little outrage over the Willed Body Program investigation, a UCI official says. B9