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Monday, November 4, 1996

MEDICAL CENTER:

Families claim university disposed of cadavers in an undignified manner By Phillip Carter

Daily Bruin Staff

Attorneys representing the families of nearly 18,000 participants in UCLA's Willed Body program filed suit against the university last Thursday, claiming the cadavers were handled "without dignity" and dumped into the Pacific Ocean along with other waste from the School of Medicine.

"Not only did they not cremate them in a dignified manner, but they were cremated with multiple bodies and other items such as waste products from the School of Medicine," attorney Mike Arias said. "To make matters even worse, not only were the remains not disposed of in a dignified manner, they were disposed of in garbage cans at sea."

Between 1950 and 1993, the lawsuit says that UCLA cremated its cadavers in groups, then dumped them in garbage drums containing used medical supplies such as syringes and scalpels. The ashes were then dumped in a variety of locations, including Santa Monica Bay.

Some of the cadavers, the lawsuit further alleges, were also used for "canoeing" ­ the practice of stuffing corpses with other medical byproducts.

Arias said these practices ran contrary to the agreement made between UCLA and the body donors, who were promised a dignified cremation or burial in return for donating their bodies to science.

"The families were promised when the bodies came in that the remains would be disposed of in a dignified and humane manner," said James Terwilleger, vice provost for administration at the UCLA School of Medicine. "It was clear that the remains would be cremated unless the family wanted them back, and that the remains would be treated with dignity upon disposal."

In their lawsuit, the families argue that UCLA consistently breached their agreement with the donors' families.

"We know that this is not the case (that UCLA treated the bodies humanely)," Arias said.

The alleged dumping stopped in November 1993, when a medical-waste container broke apart in Santa Monica Bay, revealing a combination of ashes and used hospital debris inside.

David Saber, whose funeral-at-sea business was contracted by UCLA to dispose of ashes, said he found "glass vials, gauze and a rubber glove" in the ashes. Saber subsequently brought these findings to light, notifying both the UCLA administration and local news media.

At that time, a local environmental group was also looking into allegations that UCLA had been illegally dumping into Santa Monica Bay for 22 years. No results have come from those allegations or the state investigation which followed them.

Medical Center administrators explained that the 1993 case involved a contractor who was scattering ashes in the ocean in what UCLA officials felt was a "dignified manner of burial."

However, UCLA officials claimed full responsibility for the Willed Body program's past problems, saying that measures had been taken since 1993 to change the way bodies were handled.

"We took a number of steps ­ we changed the entire administration and oversight of the Willed Body program," Terwilleger said. "We brought in a professor in the department of neurobiology to oversee the program."

In addition, UCLA Medical Center officials shut down its on-campus crematorium in the Center for Health Sciences and brought in an independent contractor to handle the disposal of human remains. Additionally, UCLA began a training program for its entire medical-waste section to ensure that no slippages occurred.

Today, those measures remain in place and UCLA's medical-waste program has received a green light from California's Department of Health and Human Services.

"We came out with a 100 percent clean bill of health," Terwilleger said.

UCLA's Willed Body program continues to operate as well, providing cadavers to the School of Medicine for training of medical students and surgical residents. Hospital officials said that the corpses donated to UCLA through this program were used solely for education ­ not research.

"They were not used for research purposes ­ there are other types of research involving human tissue, and we procure for those in other ways," Terwilleger said.