Bodies For Sale: The Unregulated Afterlife Of Bodies Donated To Research

December 28, 2025

Though organ donation is a tightly regulated process, many of those protections disappear when a person’s whole body is donated to science. Each year, thousands of bodies enter a system with minimal oversight, where past cases have revealed misuse, profit-driven practices, and violations of consent. Now, experts are pushing for ethical standards in an industry that’s long operated in the shadows.

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Joy Balta, professor of anatomy, founding director, Anatomy Learning Institute, Point Loma Nazarene University, member, American Association for Anatomy’s Human Body Donor Task Force