The Untrustworthy Research Center

As I was looking through my social media recently I came across an article from the Daily Mail that was about a son who had just found out his late mother’s body was sold to the military to be used in a blast experiment. The article described how shocked and upset Jim Stauffer (the son) was because he had no idea about this happening because he said no to this option in the paperwork. As I continued reading I discovered that at least twenty other bodies had been sold to the military while the families were unaware and also chose no to this option in the paperwork. 

The most shocking part of this issue is that the families had specifically requested not to have the bodies sold to the military for experiments. The only reason the families wanted to donate the bodies was to help further scientific research but instead their loved ones were sold off and blown up. The military officials on this project said that they were never showed information that the families did not want their loved ones to be sold to them, they trusted the company that sold the bodies. Jim Stauffer said that he feels foolish because he trusted the company with his mother’s remains and he believes they took advantage of that. The company sent back ashes of his mothers hand a few days after they took her body and never explained what happened to the rest of her remains, they were only supposed to take her brain. It took three years for him to find out what had actually happened to her body. 

When investigators raided the building they found body parts without identification and other gross uses of the remains. A lawsuit was launched in 2015 with Stauffer and thirty-three other plaintiffs suing the research center and its owner Stephen Gore who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year of deferred jail time and four years of probation. He also paid 121,000 in restitution. I honestly believe that this was a slap on the wrist for such a violent misuse of body parts. 

-Victoria Garcia