SANTA ANA, Calif. - After five scandals in 10 years, University of California officials are creating a new "inventory control system" to keep track of cadavers donated to their medical schools that includes video cameras, barcodes, and computers.
The new system is designed to keep bodies and body parts from being stolen, in the wake of theft scandals at three of the university's five medical schools that have body-donation programs.
"We know people are going to be fearful, if they think that the body they donate will be in any way misappropriated," said Dr. David Taylor, executive director of medical services for UC's Office of the President.
"We are very committed to protecting the dignity of our donors." In March, UC President Robert Dynes asked former Gov. George Deukmejian to head a task force that would help develop systemwide guidelines to operate willed body programs at its Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco campuses.
The request came a few days after the director of UCLA's program was charged with felony grand theft stemming from the alleged sale of body parts.
In another case, relatives of people who donated bodies to UC Irvine are suing the system, after the campus fired its program director in 1999 and was unable to account for more than 300 bodies.
Taylor said the new accountability procedures will include a systemwide program director, to oversee all UC programs, closer supervision on each campus as well as "inventory management devices to help us keep better track of what we have." Newly developed software will monitor how many cadavers are in storage, and where. Bar-code devices also will be attached to the nearly 1,000 cadavers the university system receives each year.
"No one has done any of this stuff before," Taylor said. "It will be a totally new, energetic approach to willed body management." UCI officials did not respond to requests for comment.
June Donovan, who sued UCI after it was unable to tell her what happened to her mother's body, said she thinks the new inventory control could work.
"But the problem is, who will ultimately monitor it?" she said. "The regents have failed time after time."
Joe Melican, whose father's body is among those missing from UCI, said he was skeptical about new security procedures.
"How does a bar code on somebody's back keep the arms and legs from being sold?" he asked. "To me, this is an admission of wrongdoing, which is a step in the right direction. The UC system hasn't admitted they did anything wrong to me."
(c) 2005 The Orange County Register. Distributed by KRT.
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