Tissue Donation
What is Tissue Donation?
Biologically dead donors cannot donate whole organs, as these rapidly begin to decay after blood flow ceases. However, many tissues can be donated from corpses and remain viable for transplantation, such as corneas, bone, heart valves, skin, and fat.
“Tissue” is a group or layer of similar specialized cells that together perform a specialized function.
Is Tissue Donation After Death Safe?
One of the surprising things we discovered while researching "The Brain Death Fallacy" is that tissue donation is not without its own concerns.
In 2011, Jonn Flath, a former high school varsity athlete, died suddenly while working out with other cadets in an Air Force ROTC program. As he died outside of the hospital, Flath was not a candidate for organ donation. However, because he was registered as an organ and tissue donor, OneLegacy, a tissue procurement agency, took his skin, bones, and heart valves to be sold as medical devices before the coroner was able to perform an autopsy. His father said that he pleaded with OneLegacy to delay harvesting Jonn's tissues until after the coroner's examination so that the family could find out why their son had died, but was refused. "You can't begin to imagine what it's like to learn that they can't complete the autopsy because they took your son's heart."
A 2019 LA Times article, “In the Rush to Harvest Body Parts, Death Investigations Have Been Upended”, revealed that organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in California have been harvesting tissues from bodies BEFORE the coroner was able to examine them. Thus, in over 20 cases, the coroner could no longer determine (due to the amount of tissue destruction caused by the harvest procedure) the actual cause of death or whether these people had died as the result of a crime. Families were left not knowing what caused their loved ones’ deaths and were denied justice in cases of probable homicide. The damage this lack of closure and denial of justice has had on bereaved families is incalculable.
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Donated tissues often end up being used for cosmetic or reconstructive surgery, which may surprise donors who were not informed of this. While we have no issue with reconstructive or cosmetic surgeries, we do believe that donors should have informed consent for their remains to be used in this way, and for those receiving these procedures to be aware that donated remains are being used in their operations.
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Donating your corpse to science can also be problematic. In 2023, Cedric Lodge, the manager of Harvard’s morgue, was charged with selling brains, hearts, skin, and other body parts to members of several Facebook groups that were platforms for buying and selling “oddities”. In addition, Lodge allowed two oddity traffickers to enter the school’s morgue to "shop" for body parts. The indictment noted that the traffickers requested human skin to be turned into leather.
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Fortunately, you do not need to be a registered donor to make anatomical gifts; you just need to inform hospitals of your wishes, or have people you trust do so if you are incapacitated. Our suggestion is to stay off organ and tissue donor lists, and instead inform your family, or people you trust, that you would like to donate your tissue after you're biologically dead and all questions regarding your cause of death have been answered to their satisfaction.