This article is part of Dealing the Dead, a series exploring the use of unclaimed bodies for medical research.
A Texas county that has long turned over unclaimed bodies to local medical colleges without the consent of families will now cremate or bury the bodies instead, but only after officials contact relatives. This is after documenting that you have done everything you can to
Revised regulations unanimously approved Tuesday by Tarrant County Commissioners Court reveal how the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth mutilated and rented out hundreds of unclaimed bodies, according to NBC News. This is the latest change inspired by research. Other schools, medical technology companies and the Army too. Most of the unclaimed bodies (those whose families couldn’t afford funeral arrangements or were never found) were from Tarrant and Dallas counties, which each saved $500,000 a year in burial and cremation costs.
“The county is now in a position to do things ethically, as opposed to before, when we were relying on the University of North Texas Health Science Center to do the work,” Commissioner Alisa Simmons said after Tuesday’s vote.
Tarrant County relied on the Health Sciences Center to contact the families of the deceased and cremate the bodies. The new policy would shift that responsibility back to the county, at an estimated cost of $675,000 annually.
Officials in Tarrant and Dallas counties had justified sending the unclaimed bodies to the Health Sciences Center on the basis that they could be used for training and research to improve health care for people living in the dead. NBC News has learned that relatives who could be contacted were repeatedly unsuccessful before the body was declared unclaimed.
The Commissioners Court did not publicly discuss the details of the new policy or its cost before unanimously voting to adopt the new policy. Commissioners Court records show the county has $57,760 in its burial account and needs to find additional funds to cover the cost of the new policy.
A spokesperson for Tarrant County’s top elected official, Judge Tim O’Hare, said in a statement that Tuesday’s vote is important to “respect the dignity and memory of the deceased for whom the county is responsible for dealing with the aftermath of death.” said.
The policy document directs county coroner’s offices, funeral homes, medical facilities and nursing homes to “use all available information and means” to locate and notify next of kin of the deceased and details their efforts in writing. I am instructed to explain. Before a case can be referred to the county as an unclaimed body, the facility must file an affidavit with the county clerk stating that the person’s next of kin cannot be identified. Make at least three attempts on three separate days to contact your family member by phone, email, text, or door knock. Or, the family decides that they are unable or unable to take on the responsibility. The policy also adds another layer of oversight by requiring county welfare departments to independently attempt to contact families.
Then, only after 11 days have passed since people’s deaths, the county can cremate or bury the bodies.
The revised rules prioritize cremation of unclaimed bodies, which is cheaper than burial. However, burial may be allowed if the deceased is unidentified, is a military veteran, had a will prohibiting cremation, or if family members object to cremation. The new policy also requires counties to give “due consideration” to the religion of the deceased.
“Dealing the Dead” causes change
Tarrant drafted the new policy with the help of bioethicist Eli Shoop of the University of Texas at Arlington. Mr. Shoop has long urged authorities to stop giving unclaimed bodies to health science centers, arguing that it is immoral to dissect and study bodies without consent.
The practice is legal in most parts of the country, including Texas, but many body donation programs have discontinued it and some states have banned it. The change is part of an evolution in medical ethics that requires anatomists to treat human specimens with the same dignity they would show to living patients.
In an interview Tuesday, Shoop said he supported the policy, but would prefer burial as the default rather than cremation because many religions support the policy.
“The county has done a very good job of taking responsibility for ethical oversight and getting it right here,” she said.
An NBC News investigation found that the Health Sciences Center had accepted about 2,350 unclaimed bodies from Tarrant and Dallas counties over the past five years. The center leased part of it, charging $1,400 for the whole body, $649 for the head and $900 for the torso.
Dale Leggett, who died in a Tarrant County hospital in May 2023, was among those whose bodies were donated to the Health Sciences Center without consent and leased to an out-of-state company — his brother. Tim Leggett found out just two weeks after NBC News published the names of 1,800 people whose bodies had been transferred to the program.
Tim Leggett said his brother, 71, lived a reclusive life and it was not uncommon for him not to hear from him for more than a year. Dale didn’t even like having his picture taken. Mr Leggett said that was not a possibility and that he would have preferred to have his body dissected for research.
Leggett said she is still waiting to hear from the Health Sciences Center about the whereabouts of her brother’s body and remains angry that she and her sister were left in the dark, but that Tarrant County He said he was relieved to learn that the government was implementing policies that would ensure safety. You can avoid similar mistakes in the future.
“No one should have to learn about a death in the family from a news article,” he says.
NBC News has now identified at least 21 cases in which families learned weeks, months or even years later that their relatives had been donated to health science centers. Seven family members, including Leggett, learned what happened on NBC News.