Ten uses for your body after you die

[duke]

Ten uses for your body after you die
By Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent
October 28, 2010 8:21 a.m. EDT
(CNN) -- Like many Americans, you probably think you're pretty charitable. Perhaps you donate money to the needy or ill, give away your old clothes, volunteer at your child's school or participate in holiday gift drives in December.

But you may be missing something. As you're charitable in life, you could also be charitable in death. This holiday season -- Halloween -- you could start thinking about a kind of ghoulish donation: your body.

J. Nathan Bazzel has already made his plans. In 2001, he signed all the necessary documents to donate his body parts to the Mütter Museum, a part of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. A friend of his worked there, and he knew that researchers from around the world came to look at its vast collection of body parts.

Bazzel, 38, is HIV-positive, and he wants scientists to learn from his remains.

"If just one person can take a look at my skull and kidneys, which have suffered from HIV and the drugs used to treat it, and learn something from them -- what a magnificent gift," he said. <snip>

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[BlackFox]

The best idea I've heard is that they should change the organ donor option from "opt in" to "opt out". If you do nothing, you're a donor.

[duke]

Oct 29, 2010 12:02:01 GMT -5 BlackFox said:

The best idea I've heard is that they should change the organ donor option from "opt in" to "opt out". If you do nothing, you're a donor.

Great idea IF all hospital personnel could be trusted. Unfortunately that will never be the case.

I personally would rather let a disinterested third party make the decision to repair or harvest.

Only if no repair is possible, then harvest.

[rstewart]

Oct 29, 2010 12:26:09 GMT -5 duke said:

Oct 29, 2010 12:02:01 GMT -5 BlackFox said:

The best idea I've heard is that they should change the organ donor option from "opt in" to "opt out". If you do nothing, you're a donor.

Great idea IF all hospital personnel could be trusted. Unfortunately that will never be the case.

I personally would rather let a disinterested third party make the decision to repair or harvest.

Only if no repair is possible, then harvest.

Quite possibly the most intrusive thing I've ever heard of. What is more sacred than ones own body? Nothing is the correct answer. And you would default to having some body snatcher take possession of MY BODY unless I say no! What a crazy idea.

BTW, I am an organ donor and have been since the age of 16. However that is MY CHOICE, not the governments choice.

[Justin Thyme]

Oct 29, 2010 12:26:09 GMT -5 duke said:

Oct 29, 2010 12:02:01 GMT -5 BlackFox said:

The best idea I've heard is that they should change the organ donor option from "opt in" to "opt out". If you do nothing, you're a donor.

Great idea IF all hospital personnel could be trusted. Unfortunately that will never be the case.

I personally would rather let a disinterested third party make the decision to repair or harvest.

Only if no repair is possible, then harvest.

Nothing can be completely trusted. Everything has risks, even disinterested third parties and you are going to have a lot of trouble finding any party that is completely disinterested. If I'm going to trust any hospital to care for me when I'm ill or injured then I'm going to have to be able to trust them with my life. If I'm trusting them with my life I also need to trust them with my death and with my organs.

[ScarlettP]

Just pack me in rock salt for a few months then use me as a Halloween prop.

[duke]

Justin is correct in that finding a completely disinterested party with integrity is extremely difficult or impossible.

There are laws in place that prohibit profiting from the sale of pre-owned human parts, but those laws do not affect the black market.

Once the shell is cast off, I could care less about what is done with the left overs.

While I have toyed with the concept of an early demise due to a failing mind, all of the decision makers I have considered are already older than myself. That type of selection seems flawed at the outset.

[Warkitty]

who cares what happens with the body when your dead? I mean, you're dead, it's not like you're going to suddenly say "hmm, think I'll go back and visit for a while" and need it.

[daworm]

If they could cure diseases with fat cells rather than stem cells, I could offer up quite a few right now, without waiting for my burnt out carcass to start cooling.

[Tsavodiner]

Oct 31, 2010 7:24:43 GMT -5 Warkitty said:

who cares what happens with the body when your dead? I mean, you're dead, it's not like you're going to suddenly say "hmm, think I'll go back and visit for a while" and need it.

In that case, allow me to pickle you in a cask of honey like Eva Peron.

DEElicious on buscuits!

[Felix]

I have faith in the inventiveness of researchers in finding uses for all body parts, so Worm's mention of fat cells heartens me. My discarded parts might yield mightily to some needy recipient.

Fat is beautiful, after all.