And in many instances, they did so either without asking next of kin or by misleading next of kin as to the purpose or amount of tissue to be removed.
But they made hundreds of thousands of dollars on the deal, 10 or 20 thousand per brain, with the best candidates those of the mentally ill persuasion.
I saw the report last night, and the spinmeisters are at their finest!
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter
SEATTLE -- The King County Medical Examiner's Office has been harvesting brains from the corpses of mentally ill clients and quietly trading the tissue for money, KIRO Team 7 Investigators reported.
Video: Team 7 Investigation Raises Questions About Consent
SEATTLE -- The King County Medical Examiner's Office has been harvesting brains from the corpses of mentally ill clients and quietly trading the tissue for money, KIRO Team 7 Investigators reported.
Video: Team 7 Investigation Raises Questions About Consent
In the past seven years, the medical examiner's office received more than $1 million for collecting brains of people with schizophrenia.
In return for the money, county pathologists shipped at least 180 brains to a private research facility.
A Team 7 Investigation raises serious questions about consent: Why didn't next of kin know about the financial arrangement?
Folks on Vashon Island called him "Cool Gary," a local schizophrenic who loved hitchhiking and playing practical jokes.
When Gary died jumping into traffic in November 1998, his body wound up at the King County Morgue.
Less than 72 hours later, Gary's brain was removed and mailed to Bethesda, Md. It became property of The Stanley Medical Research Institute, a multimillion-dollar company that studies mental disorders.
5 comments:
You're missing the Clark County connection. Your blogging skills are fading with the post election mess consuming so much time. The former Director of Prvention for King County Health is John Wiesman (the Medical Examiner's Office falls under the Prevention Division) and he is now the Clark County Health Department Director. The current Manager of the Medical Examiner's Office is Greg Hewett and he was formerly employed at the Clark County Health Department before he was fired. Ah, the good old days when government weeded out incompetent people! Both of these guys ran the Medical Examiners Office when most of the brain snatching occured. In fact, the KIRO report showed some memos addressed to Greg Hewett. Since Hewett has taken over the Medical Examiner's Office a body has turned up missing (yes an entire body), the janitor was arrested and charged with theft (the union president sent them a warning a year before about thefts), several employees have resigned citing a hostile work environment, and they have had to settle some potential lawsuits where employees cited sexual harassment and retalliation. Looks like some people have taken their snake oil shows on the road!
Absolutely fascinating.
In fact, this is downright stunning. One can only wonder what our esteemed local news organs would do with this information!
They know about this mess in Portland, Maine. Why not Clark county?
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/specialrpts/braindonors/050402brain.shtml
The legacy continues.
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0402/040114_news_morgue.php
These reports are unbelievable! The Columbian ought to get on the stick and get this story out there!
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