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Who is running man?

They came from China, unidentified, unclaimed. We don't know their names, or if they mind our stares.

By KEVIN GRAHAM and BILL DURYEA
Published July 28, 2005

	Photo gallery

TAMPA - In death, they have a relationship with the world far more intimate than when blood ran through their veins. Now, they expose the core of their being to thousands of strangers.

Yet when they were alive, the people whose preserved bodies soon will be on exhibit at Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry never gave their permission to be part of such an the unusual public display.

The bodies belonged to people from China who died unidentified or unclaimed by family members, said Dr. Roy Glover, a retired University of Michigan anatomy and cell biology professor and spokesman for "Bodies, the Exhibition," which opens next month at MOSI. As a result, their remains went to the Dalian Medical University of Plastination Laboratories in the People's Republic of China. The university in turn charges a fee to use the bodies for educational purposes.

"We acquired these bodies. They were not donated," said Glover, medical director for Premier Exhibitions of Atlanta, the same group that brought the Titanic shipwreck exhibit to MOSI in 2003-04.

That contradicts what Glover told the Times two weeks ago when he said all the bodies had been donated to medical facilities.

"There is no way for us to tell who they are," said Wit Ostrenko, president of MOSI, which on Wednesday unveiled "Running Man," one of 20 fully preserved cadavers in various poses that will be part of the 14,000-square-foot exhibit from Aug. 20 to Feb. 26.

Glover hesitated to speculate what these people would have said about how science is using their bodies.

"These particular individuals are helping us to understand our bodies," said Glover. "I think they would be pleased."

Some experts in medical ethics aren't.

"I don't think the people who do these shows have proven where these bodies come from," said Michael Sappol, the curator/historian at the National Library of Medicine and the author of A Traffic of Dead Bodies: Anatomy and Embodied Social Identity in 19th Century America. Their methods "don't meet the current standards of informed consent" about the use of the body after death.

Glover said it is possible to operate legally and ethically without such consent.

In some states, if a person dies and can't be identified by a medical examiner or family member, local university medical schools have an opportunity to receive the remains for study.

Glover said when he worked in Michigan, there was a 30-day grace period after the university received the body during which time it did not use it. That time, Glover said, was used to make one last attempt to locate family members or identify the person. After 30 days, the university could do what it wanted with the body.

Glover said he assumed a similar process was used in China for acquisition of specimens for "Bodies, the Exhibition."

Sappol rejects the explanation that Chinese officials have authorized the use of the bodies, "because the Chinese government is a notorious violator of bioethical standards."

In response, Glover said, "The bodies that we were able to obtain were all legally obtained."

Still, questions have been raised as to whether cadavers and organs used in other popular exhibits of preserved human forms are obtained from Chinese prisoners shot execution-style to feed an international black market. Gunther von Hagens, the German originator of "Body Worlds," the first such exhibit of its kind, has been accused of such practices in the German media. Von Hagens has denied using specimens that were killed in violent prison deaths.

Von Hagens also has a lab in Dalian that does "plastination," or the special preservation process used in these exhibits. He was fined in April for claiming he earned the title "professor" in Germany, when he received the title in China from the Dalian Medical University - the same university that supplied "Bodies, the Exhibition" with its specimens.

But Glover said that any work or controversy surrounding von Hagens "totally does not relate to us." He said Premier Exhibitions has no affiliation with von Hagens and does not acquire the bodies of prisoners.

Informed consent is not a universal standard outside the United States. Other countries, such as Austria and Belgium, apply a concept called "pure presumed consent" - in which organs may be taken without notification of a dead person's family. The onus is on citizens to explicitly opt out of the system.

In 1968, the U.S. government created the 1968 Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, which guides the donations of 90 to 95 percent of the bodies now used at medical schools, Sappol said. Overwhelmingly, these bodies belong to people who died in their 60s to 90s, which is an age group that is not as appealing to creators of preserved body exhibits, Sappol said.

Von Hagens "wants prime specimens," Sappol said. "So he gets most of his bodies from China and Central Asia."

Glover said the age range of bodies coming to MOSI was confidential but on record in Dalian.

Jeffrey Spike, a bioethicist at the Florida State University College of Medicine, said he is suspicious of using youthful specimens if it means avoiding informed consent.

"If a 70-year-old body is good enough for a medical student to learn all she needs about anatomy, then why isn't it good enough for these exhibitions?" Spike said. "That indicates this is more voyeurism, that you want to see younger bodies."

Premier Exhibitions paid Dalian Medical University a fee to use the specimens for education. Calls to Premier to ascertain the amount of the fee were not returned.

"None of these things we have in the exhibition are bought," Glover said. "It's illegal to sell human materials."

Technically, Glover said, that means the bodies must be returned to Dalian Medical University, the original owner, if Premier Exhibitions ever stops using them for education. Anyone who sought bodies for private ownership would run afoul of international law banning the sale of human tissue.

For now, the question of who these people were likely will not be answered, even in an age when sophisticated genetic analysis is so widespread.

Glover said that it is possible to use DNA to identify remains. But not everyone has a sample of their DNA on file, he said. The people used in MOSI's exhibit probably didn't.

Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this story.

BODIES, THE EXHIBITION: Runs Aug. 20-Feb. 26 at the Museum of Science and Industry, 4801 E Fowler Ave., Tampa.

Admission for the exhibit ranges from $14.95 to $29.95 for adults, $13.95 to $27.45 for seniors age 60 and older, and $12.95 to $24.95 for children ages 2 to 12. Prices vary depending on the level of access to the rest of the museum.

To purchase tickets, call MOSI at 813 987-6000 or toll-free 1-800-995-MOSI. You can also visit www.bodiestheexhibition.com

[Last modified July 28, 2005, 01:26:25]