GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: More donating their bodies to science

sábado, 20 de agosto de 2016

BioEdge: More donating their bodies to science

More donating their bodies to science

by Michael Cook | 20 Aug 2016 |

Funeral homes are earning more through cremation of bodies donated to science

More and more people are leaving their bodies to American medical schools as subjects for dissection, according to an article from Associated Press. The surge in donation has been a bonanza for medical schools, which use the cadavers for anatomy classes or for practicing surgical techniques.

"Not too long ago, it was taboo. Now we have thousands of registered donors," said Mark Zavoyna, operations manager for Georgetown University's body donation program. Other universities also report increases, although some have actually declined in recent years. ScienceCare, which describes itself as "the world’s largest accredited whole body donation program", now gets 5,000 cadavers a year, twice as many as it did in 2010.

ScienceCare’s sales pitch appeals to generosity and altruism: “By providing a vital service and a pathway to greater knowledge and discovery, together we can help save lives, advance medical research and education, and improve quality of life for families and the community.”

But other factors are at work as well. The first is the cost of cremation and funerals. Bodies used by medical schools are cremated and returned to families, often at no expense. This is an important consideration when the average cost of a burial is US$8-10,000. The second is the weakening of religious objections to dissection and cremation. According to Time magazine, for the first time in the US, more people were cremated than buried in 2015. In 1980, fewer than 10% of people chose cremation.

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/more-donating-their-bodies-to-science/11966#sthash.nsjag5jF.dpuf

Costa Rica is a small Central American republic of about 4.5 million people which is remarkably stable, compared to other countries in the region. It is one of the few countries in the world without a standing army. Its democratic institutions are robust. A higher proportion of people turn out to vote than in the US. The percentage of seats in parliament held by women is nearly double that of the US – about one-third.

Yet Costa Rica has been dragooned by an international court into enacting legislation which violates its Constitution. In 2000 it became the only country in the world to ban IVF, based on a Supreme Court ruling that this violated a constitutional guarantee to the right to life for the unborn. Last year, after many legal battles, Costa Rica was ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to enact legislation enabling IVF -- against the will of its legislature and Supreme Court. “Seven foreigners are making decisions about human life in Costa Rica,” said one deputy bitterly. After more legal tussles, clinics began offering IVF procedures last month.

Regardless of where one stands on the ethics of IVF, this seems like a low point for respect for democracy. An article in Nature crowed over the victory and said that the next goal must be the legalization of abortion. There’s something quite cynical about this. If the Inter-American Court of Human Rights struck down the death penalty in the US, all Americans would be united in their outrage. Voters in the UK supported Brexit because EU courts were suborning UK legislation, amongst other issues. Yet no one is defending Costa Rica’s right to make up its own mind on controversial bioethical problems.

This is The Mouse That Roared with an unhappy ending.