Body Brokers is an audacious, disturbing, and compellingly written investigative exposé of a little known aspect of the “death care” world: the lucrative business of procuring, buying, and selling human cadavers and body parts.

 

Every year human corpses meant for anatomy classes, burial, or cremation find their way into the hands of a shadowy group of entrepreneurs who profit by buying and selling human remains. While the government has controls on organs and tissue meant for transplantation, these “body brokers” capitalize on the myriad other uses for dead bodies that receive no federal oversight whatsoever: commercial seminars to introduce new medical gadgetry; medical research studies and training courses; and U.S. Army land-mine explosion tests.  A single corpse used for these purposes can generate up to $10,000.

As journalist Annie Cheney found while reporting on this subject over the course of three years,  when there’s that much money to be made with no federal regulation, there are all sorts of shady (and fascinating) characters who are willing to employ questionable practices—from deception and outright theft — to acquire, market, and distribute human bodies and parts.   In Michigan and New York she discovers funeral directors who buy corpses from medical schools and supply the parts to surgical equipment companies and associations of surgeons. In California, she meets a crematorium owner who sold the body parts of people he was supposed to cremate, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits.  In Florida, she attends a medical conference in a luxury hotel, where fresh torsos are delivered in large coolers and displayed on gurneys in a room normally used for banquets.  “That torso that you’re living in right now is just flesh and bones.  To me, it’s a product,” says the New Jersey-based broker presiding over the torsos.   Tracing the origins of body brokering from the “resurrectionists” of the 19th century to the entrepreneurs of today, Cheney chronicles how demand for cadavers has long driven unscrupulous funeral home, crematorium and medical school personnel to treat human bodies as commodities. 

 

Gripping, often chilling, and sure to cause a reexamination of the American way of death, Body Brokers is a captivating work of first-person reportage.

"Readers will be horrified by this carefully researched expos revealing that the trade in corpses for medical research and education didn't go out with 19th-century grave robbers. Cheney, who won a Society of Professional Journalists award for the Harper's article that gave rise to this book, describes the case of Arthur Rathburn, a morgue attendant at the University of Michigan Medical School, who supplied body parts to the American Association of Clinical Anatomists and other organizations until he was caught and fired. Families who donate the bodies of loved ones to medical schools are misled into believing that no profit will be made from their gift, but many schools — the University of Kansas and Tulane, among others, according to the author — generate income by selling surplus corpses to the highest bidders. Cheney also covers the sale of transplantable tissue for patients undergoing surgery; with no government oversight of this 'billion-dollar business,' such tissue can be diseased, resulting in bacterial infections and even death for recipients. Occasionally, melodramatic narrative pads the substance, but Cheney reveals a disturbing medical underworld that deserves attention." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

“Horrifying! Annie Cheney’s account is meticulously reported and compellingly written. She uses details to anchor scenes visually and then pushes the reader to visualize the entrepreneurial manipulation of corpses — their dismemberment, sale and use — as both gruesome and matter-of-fact. She backs up her narrative with research into history, literature and crime.”

-- Society of Professional Journalists 2005 Featuring Reporting Award, judges citation for “The Resurrection Men” (Harpers Magazine), the basis of Body Brokers

Every year some 30 percent of American corpses are cremated. And as journalist Annie Cheney discovered, no one keeps track of them before they reach their final destination. While the government has tight controls on organs and tissue meant for transplantation, there are myriad other uses for cadavers that receive no oversight whatsoever: parts are used in commercial seminars to introduce new medical gadgetry; torsos are used for stomach-stapling surgery practice; bodies are bought by the U.S. Army for land-mine explosion tests. A single corpse can generate up to $100,000.

Dead bodies, it turns out, are a billion-dollar business. And, as Cheney found, when there's that much money to be made without regulation, there are all sorts of shady (and fascinating) characters employing questionable practices--deception, distraction, and outright theft. Body parts are shipped via FedEx or driven cross-country packed in garden-variety coolers, and the deceased's families are usually entirely unaware. A favorite aunt has donated her body to help train med students at a university, but the school's boom in corpses, paired with budget problems, lead to her sale to a body broker. The cremated remains her family receives may be only a portion of her body, or not her body at all.

Gripping, chilling, and sure to spur media coverage," Body Brokers will make you look at death, and the family-run funeral home down the road, in a whole new way.

An audacious, disturbing, and compellingly written investigative expose of the lucrative business of procuring, buying, and selling human cadavers and body parts, this book is both a captivating work of first-person reportage and a surprising inside look at a little-known aspect of the "death care" world.

ANNIE CHENEY’s magazine work has appeared in Harper’s and My Generation. Her Harper’s article that is the basis of this book was awarded the 2005 Deadline Club Award for Best Feature Reporting by the Society of Professional Journalists. She has also contributed stories to numerous public radio shows, including NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Cheney lives in New York City.