DA: Alleged body part harvests were 'medical terrorism'

[DoYouEverWonder]

February 24, 2006

In a case officials labeled "medical terrorism," four men were arraigned Thursday on charges they illegally scavenged and defiled human corpses for body parts later used in transplant procedures.

A massive 122-count indictment by a Brooklyn grand jury accused former New Jersey dentist Michael Mastromarino of being the ringleader in a scheme in which more than 1,000 bodies sent to funeral homes were allegedly cut open illegally for bones, ligaments and other tissues that wound up in hospitals around the country.

"It's unique in its utter disregard for human decency," Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes said about the alleged multimillion-dollar scheme at a news conference Thursday announcing the unsealing of the indictment.

"All of us have lost a loved one. Imagine in the aftermath of your grief ... that parts were taken from his or her body," said Hynes.

http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-body0223,0,1434672.story

[MissB]

1. It is one thing if you donate your body to science.

And quite another thing when your body is stolen for profit. Eeks.

[ThomCat]

12. Especially when they're falsifying records

to make unacceptable parts look acceptable.

I feel horrible for the people who received those transplanted parts.

[rodeodance]

2. it was horrid- but that word-terrorism-should not be used -it is used just

too often.

[brer cat]

5. lol I was posting the same thing at the same time. GREAT minds!

[Warpy]

6. Agreed, it's stupid hyperbole for a bunch of sleaze bags

who were desecrating the dead to make a buck. That description is nasty enough, thanks, no need to overstate the case.

This is tough on Catholic literalists who believe the body will be resurrected as it was at the time of death. To think of Uncle Charlie going through the afterlife with PVC pipes instead of legs would be horrible.

[brer cat]

3. This is horrendous! But to call it terrorism?

When we keep using the same terminology for vastly different things, I think we trivialize it. Same as "war on" everything from poverty to "terror."

[Mithras61]

4. Not terrorism...

Disgusting, repulsive, beneath humanity, probably even theft and a multitude of other descriptions, but not terrorism. Terrorism by its nature seeks to force people to do something against their will. This isn't doing that. It's stealing from the dead & degrading the death process and the greiving process, but the loved ones left behind aren't being "terrorised" nor even asked, so there is no "terrorism" involved.

It's appalling that the DA would use this term in this case. DAs should KNOW and DO better.

[BlueEyedSon]

7. I think it should be required. Youre dead, let someone else have the parts

The family should get the profits, if any, of course!

[Mandate My Ass]

8. Yeah but with the caveat

that those with religious beliefs about the sanctity of an intact body as a condition to make it to heaven, be able to opt out.

And as other posters have noted, this whole "terrorism" label being applied to anything criminal, particularly something as emotion-stirring as this, is going waaaaaaay too far and has sinister undertones AFAIC.

[BlueEyedSon]

9. Religious beliefs should be revised: helping others in need is good.

:evilgrin:

[Mandate My Ass]

11. Agreed

but as a long-time recovering Catholic, it still gives me pause to eat meat on Fridays during Lent. Conditioning is a bitch. I would spare others that unnecessary angst if the needs of the living were served adequately by the non-religious cadavers, of which there would be an adquate amount. :evilgrin:

[BlueEyedSon]

13. I guess im a little buzzed, I thought you wrote "Cathaholic"

[mike_c]

10. this is LANGUAGE TERRORISM....

eom

[BlueEyedSon]

14. we have a winner