An NBC News investigation reveals the disturbing practices of body brokers who profit from unclaimed bodies, often sending them to medical research institutions without proper consent or notification of next of kin. The investigation highlights the lack of federal regulation in this industry and the ethical dilemmas it presents.
Libero Marinelli Jr.’s journey from a public hospital to a for-profit body broker demonstrates the peril of an industry with little regulation, an NBC News investigation foundLast year, Karen Wandel received an alarming message: Her father had died more than five months earlier in a South Carolina hospital and, when no family claimed his body, the hospital sent it to be used for medical research. Wandel had a strained relationship with her father, Libero Marinelli Jr.
But in many states where it is legal to use unclaimed bodies for medical research, officials told NBC News that they did not have records of any such cases or denied requests for detailed information. That included Pennsylvania, where an official said the body-donation program could not share how the 58 unclaimed bodies were used.
Marinelli’s wife, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, also suffered from addiction, and from mental illness, Wandel said. They separated but did not divorce. Neither was able to properly care for Wandel, their only child, so she spent much of her childhood in foster care but stayed in touch with her parents.
Two days later, Marinelli fell at home and couldn't get up. He was taken to Spartanburg Medical Center, according to hospital records. Over the next several weeks, his condition worsened to include respiratory failure, a blood infection, Covid, pneumonia and strokes. He didn’t have any family contacts listed on his chart, according to the records.
In early August 2022, the hospital posted a public notice that ran in print for three days in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, a local newspaper, seeking relatives of Marinelli, but no one in his family saw it. But when she drove to Spartanburg for a copy of his death certificate — the next step toward recovering his remains and holding a military funeral — she discovered the hospital had provided his body to NovaShare. She began researching the body broker industry and was appalled to see If her father was eligible for a free burial in a veterans cemetery, why didn’t the hospital simply notify the U.S.
In her eulogy, Wandel described their fractured relationship and how they had tried repeatedly to reconnect.
BODY BROKERS MEDICAL RESEARCH ETHICAL DILEMAS UNCLAIMED BODIES HEALTHCARE REGULATION
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