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A Regulatory Vacuum
The sale of human bodies for education and research is a largely unregulated, multibillion-dollar industry in America. It operates through both nonprofit institutions and for-profit companies known as “body brokers.” These entities typically acquire bodies through voluntary donations or from unclaimed individuals, often from marginalized populations.
There is no comprehensive federal law governing this space. The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 only covers organs used for transplantation. For bodies donated to medical research or education — what’s called non-transplant tissue banking — there is essentially no federal jurisdiction. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (UAGA), adopted by most states, permits body donation but allows institutions to charge “reasonable” fees for processing, storage, and transportation. That loophole has enabled a largely unchecked trade.
Documented Cases of Abuse
Several high-profile cases illustrate just how badly the system can fail donors and their families.
In 2024, a news outlet investigation found that the a medical health center in Texas had been dissecting and selling unclaimed bodies, including that of Army veteran Victor Carl Honey, without family consent. Roughly 2,350 unclaimed individuals had been transferred to the center since 2019, generating approximately $2.5 million annually for the institution.
A former morgue manager at the famous medical school in Massachusetts was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling body parts from cadavers donated to the school’s anatomical gift program between 2018 and 2023. Parts were sold through Facebook to buyers across the country, including one who allegedly purchased skin to be tanned into leather.
In 2014, the FBI raided a biological research center in Phoenix, Arizona, uncovering ten tons of frozen human remains. Bodies were stacked without identification tags. Some had been sold to the military for blast testing, not the medical research donors had intended. A court later ordered the company to pay $58 million in damages to affected families.
Between 2010 and 2018, operators of a funeral home in Montrose, Colorado, dismembered over 560 bodies and sold the parts through a side business. Families paid up to $1,000 for cremations that never took place. Some remains infected with Hepatitis B, C, and HIV were shipped to buyers using falsified lab reports.
The Human Cost
The trade disproportionately affects vulnerable people: the poor, the homeless, and others with limited resources or family networks to advocate on their behalf. Consent is sometimes forged or obtained through deception. And when families discover what happened to their loved ones, the psychological damage is severe. Grief becomes complicated by a sense of violation, families left wondering whether their relative was ever properly laid to rest.
Treating human remains as commodities doesn’t just harm individuals. It signals, broadly, that some lives, and deaths, carry less dignity than others.
Who’s Paying Attention
Several groups are actively engaged on this issue. Investigative journalists, particularly the reporters team behind the “Dealing the Dead” series, have done critical work surfacing these abuses. Families of victims, like Farra Fasold, whose father’s remains were mishandled by body broker company BioCare, are pursuing legal action. Veteran rights organizations have taken interest given that some victims were former military. Civil rights groups focused on homeless communities are raising concerns about the disproportionate sourcing of unclaimed remains from marginalized groups. Faith-based organizations have spoken out on the ethical and moral dimensions.
What Needs to Happen
The core problem is simple: the existing regulatory framework was not designed for this industry, and the gaps have been exploited. Federal legislation specifically governing non-transplant anatomical donation would be a logical starting point. So would stronger state-level oversight, independent auditing of body broker operations, clearer and enforceable consent standards, and real accountability when institutions profit from remains without authorization.
The people who donated their bodies, or whose bodies were taken without their knowledge, deserved better. So do their families.
