China 'Bodies' exhibit sparks employee resignation

By SALLY KALSON
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, June 21, 2007

The bodies are coming, and with them some questions that will not go away.

"Bodies ... The Exhibition," featuring 15 full-body human corpses from China that have been preserved by a process called "plastination," is scheduled to open at the Carnegie Science Center in October for a seven-month run.

The cadavers are peeled of their skin and arranged in poses -- kicking a soccer ball, setting up a tennis serve -- alongside 200 other body parts and specimens, including embryos and fetuses from 9 to 32 weeks' gestation, all plasticized.

It is one of three major traveling exhibits that have been drawing huge crowds around the world. But along with the exhibits' popularity have come ethical and religious concerns.

None of the people who once inhabited the bodies in "Bodies" gave their consent to be used this way, and that has made some folks profoundly uneasy. Their doubts are compounded by China's record of human-rights abuses, including the harvesting of transplant organs from executed prisoners.

One opponent is Elaine Catz, an 11-year employee of the science center who resigned over "Bodies" last week.

"We don't know how these people died or why they died, and I don't think Premier knows, either," she said, referring to the company, Premier Exhibitions of Atlanta, that is presenting the show. "Before we put our stamp of approval on it, there should be a high burden of proof on Premier."

Premier says the corpses were unidentified or unclaimed, that every attempt was made to locate relatives before the bodies were turned over to police and then, through proper legal channels, to Premier's Chinese partners at Dalian Medical University's dissection-and-plastination operation.

Premier's original claim to fame was exhibiting artifacts from Titanic. Its "Bodies" exhibit is one of several such blockbuster cadaver enterprises that have been pulling in millions of viewers and dollars around the globe. Patrons from Las Vegas to Lisbon have paid up to $30 apiece ($22 for adults in Pittsburgh) for an inside look at the bones, nerves, muscles and organs of these once-living people.

Premier alone will have 11 different versions of "Bodies" making the rounds by the time the one in Pittsburgh opens. At roughly 250 specimens per show, that's 2,750 body parts on display. And it is a relative newcomer to the marketplace.

The original cadaver show, "Body Worlds," was the creation of German scientist Gunther van Hagens, who invented the plastination process in the 1970s. "Body Worlds" was first exhibited in the 1990s as "art" in Asia and Europe, where van Hagens raised hackles by signing the corpses and arranging them in provocative poses. Now the "Body Worlds" shows are portrayed more as science education, and have taken in more than $200 million. Specimens are displayed with documents of permission from their donors.

Premier said it hit the million-visitor mark last month at its New York show alone, proof of the public's desire for a look inside themselves in a way that was never before possible.

"Up until now, medical practitioners have been the only ones given the opportunity to view the inner workings of our bodies," said Carnegie Science Center director Joanna Haas.

"This allows a much broader segment of the population to see what's inside, at a time of growing concerns about health and wellness. It will be a great catalyst for young people to explore careers in health and medicine."

The bodies in "Bodies" don't actually belong to Premier -- the company paid $25 million to Dalian Medical University for the rights to use them for display. When the shows are over, the bodies will revert to the school and then be cremated.

Arnie Geller, president of Premier, said he spent nearly two years vetting the body-acquisition process and goes back to China four or five times a year to make sure everything is operating as intended.

"We're a publicly traded company," said Geller. "We've done all due diligence and are very sensitive about our own requirements let alone the legal ones. The people we work with in China are highly reputable and we have no reason to doubt them."

China's treatment of unclaimed bodies is similar to that of the United States, he said. They're taken to the morgue, and if after several months of advertising nobody claims them, they're offered to medical schools for educational purposes. The death certificates, autopsy reports if any and any other documentation are kept by Chinese authorities, who, he said, consider them confidential.

(Sally Kalson can be reached at skalson(at)post-gazette.com.)