Reply #5: French fear cover-up over babies' bodies: Independent [View All]

[emad]

French fear cover-up over babies' bodies
By Alex Duval Smith in Paris
Published: 04 August 2005

The French government is desperately attempting to quell fears that macabre medical experiments are being carried out in the public health service after the revelation that 351 foetuses and stillborn babies were secretly preserved in formalin in a Paris hospital .

The discovery at Saint Vincent de Paul hospital of jars of preserved "anatomical pieces" - aborted foetuses and babies, as well as the body of a child which was three days old when it died - was made public on Tuesday by the Health Minister, Xavier Bertrand. But claims by public health officials yesterday that the store at the hospital was an "administrative mistake" fuelled suspicions of a cover-up.

Mr Bertrand was clearly shocked when he announced that some of the "pieces" preserved at Saint Vincent de Paul were 25 years old. He confirmed that parents had not been informed of the practice, which had continued until this year. He added that French law clearly stipulates rapid incineration or burial for embryos, foetuses or babies born dead or aborted because of malformations or ill-health.

Dominique de Villepin, the Prime Minister, has announced two formal inquiries and a criminal investigation has been launched.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article303489.ece