I-Team: Theft of body parts from Harvard raises concerns for organ donation services
BOSTON - The theft from Harvard Medical School's morgue is now raising a number of ethical and legal questions. It is also causing concern in the area of organ donation, which is life-saving and very different from donating a whole body for research.
Photos of blood and bone dominoes along with boxes of bones were all for sale on Jeremy Lee Pauley's Facebook page. One of the many places where collectors of body parts were able to find sellers online.
One collector told CBS in Pennsylvania collecting a human skull is the holy grail.
Among Pauley's collection of the macabre, a mounted human skull. Pauley is one of six charged in the theft and sale of human body parts from Harvard Medical School's morgue and a mortuary in Arkansas.
Alexandra Glazier is the president and CEO of New England Donor Services. She tells the I-Team the organization is very concerned about this case. Alexandra says organ donation is very different from whole body donation for research, which is where federal prosecutors say the charges of the theft of body parts from Harvard's mortuary stemmed from.
"Organ donation for transplant within the New England region are held to very high standards by federal regulators," Glazier said. "In fact, actually every organ that is donated for transplant and recovered by our organization for transplant is tracked and accounted for."
Bodies donated to universities and medical schools make few specific promises to families about what the anatomical gift may be used for. The primary goal is to help medical students and train surgeons. But the body or its parts can also be shared with research partners or private corporations to develop biomedical products or devices. All of that is up to the individual institutions and is perfectly legal.
What's not legal is allegedly stealing and shipping body parts intended for research to collectors for sale on the black market.
Heartbreaking news for families like Nick Pichowicz's who got the call from Harvard telling them his remains were likely bought and sold online.
"I can't believe that," his daughter Paula Peltonovich said. "Like what eyes? I mean skin? It's just disgusting. I don't even know, I don't want to know."
Nick's daughters say their 87-year-old father's last wish was to help medical researchers and donated and entrusted his body to Harvard Medical School in 2019.
"I mean you put them on the higher pedestal, and you know you think Harvard. You think you're safe," his daughter Darlene Lynch said.
Jeremy Lee Pauley's attorneys say he will plead guilty to the federal charges and faces up to 15 years in prison and a half a million dollar fine. The other defendants in the case have all been arraigned and given future court dates.