Following an NBC News investigation that revealed how a Texas medical school used unclaimed bodies for profit, Tarrant County will now cremate or bury those remains after attempting to contact relatives.
Tarrant County will take additional steps to find the families of dead people and honor their religious beliefs following an NBC News investigation.
Officials in Tarrant and Dallas counties had justified sending unclaimed bodies to the Health Science Center by saying their use for training and research would help improve medical care for the living. NBC News found repeated failures to contact relatives who were reachable before the bodies were declared unclaimed.
Only then, and after 11 days have passed since people’s deaths, can the county cremate or bury the bodies. Although the practice is legal in most of the country, including Texas, many body donation programs have halted it, and some states have prohibited it. The changes are part of an evolution in medical ethics that calls on anatomists to treat human specimens with the same dignity shown to living patients.
Unclaimed Bodies Medical School Tarrant County Ethical Practices Family Notification
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