A four-month-long investigation by the Scripps station in Kansas City has uncovered government videos, photos, and thousands of pages of reports detailing human corpses being used like impact test dummies in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration funded tests.
Experts agree that the research saves lives, but disagree on the what type of disclosure willed body programs should give donors and their families prior to the tests.
When we watched the impact test videos carefully, side-by-side, it was difficult to see a difference between the human corpse in one video and the traditional crash test dummy in the other.
The familiar dummy and a human cadaver are positioned nearly exactly alike and adorned with the same black and yellow photo target circles on their skulls, shoulders, hips, knees and ankles.
“This is kind of a standard frontal impact test,” said David Porta, PhD., of Bellarmine University in Louisville, describing the cadaver test video obtained though a Freedom of Information Act request.
The videos obtained by Scripps were funded by NHTSA.
Professor Porta has participated in similar privately funded full cadaver tests for automotive safety studies.
“This is an example from an animal bone,” he said pointing to a video from one of his studies. The video shows the machine creating pressure on the bone until it breaks.
Porta uses the same machine on human body parts to study how the human body will react to crash-based trauma.
“This person's ultimate gift of loaning their cadaver to us for this study is helping us fine tune how this airbag works,” Porta said about the donor shown on one of the 13 NHTSA videos obtained under the FOIA request.
The Scripps investigation indicated it is unlikely that the donor ever had any idea he’d be contributing to automotive safety through cadaver impact testing.
Standard release forms in willed body programs reference "use in medical education or research" but don’t mention potential use in impact tests.
“No, the releases that are used at the schools I've worked with are usually very generic,” Porta said.
“This was Daddy's memorial service,” Jenny Gray says, pointing to keepsake picture of her deceased father.
When Bob Morris, and years later, his wife Helen both decided to donate their bodies to a science, their kids supported the decision.
Like most families, they don’t know whether their parents’ remains ended up in an anatomy lab or in some form of medical research.
“They wanted to help,” Gray’s sister, Chris Rodenbaugh, says about their parents’ decision to sign a university willed body program consent form regardless of the intended use.
The family never considered the same release form allowing “medical research” could possibly be interpreted as allowing scientists to do impact tests with the bodies of their parents.
“It's kind of scary,” said Gray. “I can't picture my folks behind that kind of testing.”
Utilizing FOIA requests, Scripps obtained more than a dozen cadaver videos, and searched government databases with hundreds of pictures and thousands of pages of reports documenting whole corpse and partial cadaver testing.
The documents detail 4,010 tests funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration using full cadavers or cadaver parts since 1981.
Known as biomechanics testing in medical circles, that number is only a partial accounting of known studies and doesn’t include previous years or privately funded cadaver tests.
“In reality, injury biomechanics testing has been ongoing for more than 50 years with thousands of cadavers used to develop safety devices, improved dummies, injury tolerance, et cetera,” said Carol Wood at the University of Virginia.
“Our tests involving cadavers are strictly controlled, laboratory-run sled tests that are designed to asses (sic) the tolerance of various regions of the human body to forces that may be encountered in a vehicle crash,” said NHTSA’s associate chief counsel Stanley Feldman in a written response to the FOIA request.
“This allows us to estimate the degree and type of injuries vehicle occupants may experience in a crash so that we can improve vehicle safety,” Feldman wrote.
Each video is supported by research papers available online in NHTSA databases.
A test titled AAMATD2.6.650 NHTSA test 8378, conducted at the University of Virginia, documents the case of cadaver FRM-124.
FRM-124 died of a breathing problem at 40-years-old about a month before technicians attached his body to the impact sled in a UVA lab.
Shortly before the test, handlers thawed out his unembalmed body and covered his face with a white hood.
They dressed him in a special type of long underwear designed with absorbent material similar to adult diapers.
On top of the long underwear, handlers dressed him in a second layer which looks like a blue leotard.
They also place white mittens on his hands. The outfit makes them look less human and, in most cases, prevents flesh from being exposed during impact.
On his back, pelvis and head, technicians attached instruments to record the imminent impact.
Technicians also pasted those familiar black and yellow circles at key points on his body.
The circles are the same photo targets used on crash test dummies to aid cameras recording split second movement during the crash.
At 4-feet, 11-inches, and 103 pounds, FRM-124 was too short to be seated in the standard configuration which is designed for larger specimens. Technicians had to tape his feet to the floor to keep his corpse in place prior to impact.
The study tested passenger side airbags in a crash at 30 mph.
At impact, the video shows his head striking the windshield and his chest hitting the dashboard.
Afterwards, scientists took X-rays which revealed broken ribs, and a large break in his pelvis.
The autopsy documented all crash related injuries and linked them to the speed, the gravity of the impact, and depth of penetration.
Scientists use data collected in cadaver tests to calibrate crash test dummies.
“In order to make the dummies realistic, the dummies have to be based on cadaver testing,” Porta says.
This year, NHTSA funded testing using whole-corpse or individual body parts cut from cadavers at Duke, Medical College of Wisconsin, University of Michigan, University of Washington and University of Virginia.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration doesn't require schools to get special consent from donors or their families for impact tests.
NHTSA declined an on-camera interview.
“Consent is between the person or family and the institution to which the body was donated,” said Feldman in his response to Scripp's FOIA request.
Some schools rely simply on the blanket “medical research” release as the only notification of the cadaver’s intended use to the donor or family.
At least one school, the University of Virginia, which does full-cadaver testing, requires administrators to contact next-of-kin for special permission.
“We answer any and all questions they might have concerning the testing we propose, and only if they provide their consent do we proceed,” said UVA’s Wood. “Frequently, there is an extended conversation regarding the procedures.”
If the next-of-kin objects, the cadaver is not entered in the program, but there are no national standards.
Cadavers beyond the anatomy lab aren’t limited to impact tests.
NASA has used cadavers to test space craft and the Army has used cadavers in landmine explosions for tests to improve footwear design for soldiers.
“It's like any other contract,” said Dr. John Lantos, a leading expert in medical ethics. “If you signed for research, and people used it for research, you got what you paid for.”
The author and pediatrician says one must consider the societal good, like better safety belts, windshields and airbags in NHTSA funded tests.
A 1995 study by leading cadaver researcher Albert King, PhD. of Wayne State University credited impact test cadavers with saving thousands of real crash humans.
“Over 60 lives were saved and countless injuries prevented for each cadaver used in the development and validation of safety improvements,” King wrote in the Journal of Trauma.
Although, technically, Lantos believes the tests are medical research, ethically, he says, donors would be better served by release forms with more details about what “research” could mean.
“A more detailed disclosure would be better, but a vague and sketchy disclosure isn't evil, it's just slightly deceptive,” Lantos said.
Professor Porta doesn’t feel like his tests deceive donors.
“No,” Porta said. “I think somebody who's given this tremendous gift to a medical school, I think if they really stop and think about it, they know their body is going to be damaged in some way.”
The Morris daughters remain uncomfortable with the vagueness of a general "medical research" release.
“I think it's deceptive,” Gray said.
The daughters still believe in the value of donating one’s body to science and are each still considering donating their own bodies.
They say they would now ask more questions before signing on the dotted line.
