UCLA's Cadaver Scandaland Trade in Human Organs Los Angeles, Alta California - March 10, 2004 - The arrest over the weekend of UCLA's Director of the Willed Body Program, Henry Reid, and criminal investigation of others at the University of California for the illegal sale of body parts is only the "tip of the iceberg" of a much more horrific problem. The fact that one cadaver can be dismembered and sold in parts for over $200,000 to the pharmaceutical and medical industries has resulted in an underground network of sleazy body part traders who utilize university medical centers as "fronts" for their macabre business. Also, the underground trade in transplantable tissues and organs has now become a multi-billion per year business resulting in widespread horrors that includes the kidnapping of homeless children, for their transplantable tissues and organs, along the US/Mexico border and the forced removal of organs from prisoners in third world countries for sale in the USA. The investigation of the UCLA Medical Center is presently focused in finding out who was involved, over a period of six years, in profiting in the sale of body parts. Arrested, along with UCLA's Henry Reid, was Ernest Nelson, a body parts dealer who says he paid Reid over $700,000 for permission to go into the UCLA body freezer and hack about 800 cadavers into pieces to take their parts. The cadavers were supposed to be used exclusively by medical students for study. Ernest Nelson has provided documentation to authorities that proves that high level UCLA administrators had knowledge of the clandestine sale of body parts and approved it. It now appears that Henry Reid, two other employees under his supervision, and others at the UCLA Medical Center got away with trafficking in body parts by keeping some of the donated cadavers off the books. Henry Reid and the others may have been accepting cadavers that they never recorded. These practices brings to mind some frightening scenarios. There has been widespread reports of homeless persons mysteriously disappearing from the Los Angeles downtown "Skid Row" area that is not very far from UCLA. With bodies bringing in as much as $200,000 dollars, who is to say that an underground "Cadaver Mafia" is not in operation and is kidnapping and murdering these anonymous persons in order to sell their cadavers to medical centers such as the one at UCLA. Worst of all, there have been mysterious disappearances of UCLA students as well. One case involved the disappearance of freshman Michael Negrete from the Dykstra Hall campus dormitory on December 10, 1999. Michael Negrete's body has never been found. The sale of body parts from cadavers is a very lucrative clandestine business and is growing yearly. The pharmaceutical and medical industries pay big bucks for everything from skin, scalps, fingernails, tendons, heart valves, skulls and bones that they use for research and for making medicines and for replacement surgery. Companies that make medical instrument conduct training seminars for doctors using varied body parts. Johnson & Johnson, has so far, been the only pharmaceutical company named in court documents of contracting with body parts dealer Ernest Nelson for human tissue samples. More nefarious than utilizing University of California Medical Centers to "launder" cadaver parts obtained clandestinely, are the many underground clinics that are performing transplants of organs illegally obtained. Many of these organs are extracted from kidnapped Mexican children along the US/Mexico border and transplanted to wealthy USA patients in clinics in Tijuana, Cd. Juarez and Laredo. La Voz de Aztlan has an extensive report titled "THE CORRUPTIVE INFLUENCE OF THE DOLLAR: The Shameful Trade in Mexican Baby Organs!" at http://www.aztlan.net/organs.htm concerning the problem. The horrific trade in human organs was also exposed in a 2003 film titled "Dirty Pretty Things". The film staring Audrey Tautou and directed by Stephen Frears is a socially-conscious thriller that provides a glimpse into the "the people you do not see": the clandestine world of illegal immigrants and the traffickers in organ sales that exploit their desperation for profit. According to promoters of the film, "An estimated 15,000 illegal organ transplants have been performed worldwide in recent years, usually involving wealthy Westerners and the Third World's marginalized poor who sell their organs, most often kidneys, to stay alive. The fact that many countries have banned the sale of organs only means it has gone "underground" and is now controlled by "Organ Mafias".
Nothing new, anything for money but still, it's sicken to read about stuff like this, pretty scary since it could happen to you.
This is actually old news from five years ago, and I remember when it hit the news, there was shock and outrage at event. This is a classic example of what can happen when well placed people violate not only their responsibility but the public trust as well. Really shameful. What isn't old news is the fact that there still exists a lucrative trade in human organs around the world today.
