Obscure panel in center stage
The state Anatomical Board, which has been around since 1969, this week will tackle its most controversial matter yet.
By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published August 16, 2005
TAMPA - A state board of medical professors quickly vetoed a plan to bring an exhibit of skinless, posed cadavers to a Florida museum.
But it wasn't "Bodies, the Exhibition," the show scheduled to begin Saturday at Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry.
The state Anatomical Board, the clearinghouse for all bodies donated for medical research, rejected a similar exhibit in 1998 after members were told an entrepreneur named Gunther von Hagens was eyeing Florida.
Von Hagens is the inventor of the "plastination" technique to preserve bodies for museum shows; he also created the popular "Body Worlds" exhibit now on display in Chicago. He never asked the Anatomical Board for its opinion, and it's unclear today how serious his Florida ambitions were. But the board took a position anyway.
The consensus of the six professors on the board was based on scant information and "hearsay," according to the board's executive director. But the case serves as a precedent as the obscure panel - which has operated quietly in the funerary and academic worlds for 35 years - tackles its most controversial matter yet.
The Anatomical Board on Wednesday is set to take a vote that could stand in the way of Premier Exhibitions of Atlanta, the promoter of "Bodies, the Exhibition."
In Florida, cadavers or body parts brought into the state for educational purposes need Anatomical Board permission, according to state law. The board wants written records from the show's promoters that the donors or families consented to the use of their bodies in the exhibit.
Premier Exhibitions has said that's not possible because the bodies, which come from China, were unclaimed and unidentified. The company challenged the board's authority, but Attorney General Charlie Crist backed the board last week.
As of Monday afternoon, Premier or MOSI officials had yet to hand over information the board's requested about the origins of the bodies it uses.
"I'm waiting," said Lynn Romrell, executive director of the Anatomical Board.
Stern requests and standoffs are new territory for the Anatomical Board, which had never been challenged until last week. If board members agree they want to block the exhibit from opening, they'll turn to the attorney general for enforcement.
"We're not police," said Romrell, associate dean for medical education at the University of Florida, who has helped write seven books and a computer program.
Before the Anatomical Board formed, the universities of Miami and Florida operated separate body donation programs for their medical schools. In 1969, the state university system created the Legislature-endorsed board.
The Anatomical Board, which reports to the UF vice president for Health Affairs, oversees the conveyance of about 400 bodies a year to state medical schools. The board has a $300,000 annual budget paid for by fees paid by those donating their organs. Florida, Miami, South Florida, Florida State and Nova Southeastern universities each appoint a representative to an indefinite term. This year, UF has two representatives.
Three board members, Romrell, Miami professor Phillip Waggoner and Nova Southeastern professor Gerald Conover, have been members for at least a decade.
They were on the board in 1998, when it arrived at a consensus that an exhibit featuring exposed cadavers would not be appropriate in Florida.
Conover and Romrell declined to comment on that case because the board is about to rule on a similar exhibit. Waggoner couldn't be reached.
But in an August 2003 Science magazine story, Romrell said, the show's promoters' "intentions were not educational." In comparison, Romrell has said MOSI's "Bodies" seems to be a "high class" educational show, but the board still has questions about its educational purpose, as well as the identification of the bodies, Romrell has said.
The last time the Anatomical Board surfaced in news stories was 2002, when police found a UF neuroanatomy teacher was stashing the school's donated cadaver parts - including heads, brains, spines and a shoulder and attached arm - at his home. The case prompted the board to make schools take an annual inventory of their bodies, use bar-coded tags, security cameras and locked rooms.
The board, which meets annually at locations across the state, also tries to meet the rising demand for bodies. This year, the board approved the addition of USF as a body reception center, said Christopher Phelps, anatomy department chair and an Anatomical Board member. The move will allow more Tampa Bay area residents to donate their bodies to science and avoid paying as much as $1,000 to drive bodies to Gainesville or Miami intake centers, Phelps said.
The board requires all medical students examining bodies to sign a "pledge of respect" and encourages anatomy students to put on memorial services for their "silent teachers." In May, the Tampa poet laureate participated in such a service for USF's medical school outside by a lake, Phelps said.
Board members oversee the cremation of about 400 cadavers a year after their medical use is over. About half are sent back to family; the other half are scattered at sea.
But it's the board's less-common role, in ruling on MOSI's exhibit that everyone is waiting for.
"We're definitely interested in how that goes in Tampa," said Brian Tonner, president of the Orlando Science Center.
He has been in discussions with Premier and the competing "Body Worlds" promoters to host one of those exhibits there.
--Justin George can be reached at 813 226-3368 or jgeorge@sptimes.com