Assembly Approves Consent Rules for Cadaver Exhibits
On Thursday, the Assembly approved legislation to require commercial exhibitors of plasticized human cadavers to provide documentation proving consent had been given by the bodies or their next of kin, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The measure, (AB 1519) by Assembly member Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), goes to the Senate for consideration.
Under the bill, exhibitors would be required to obtain a county operating permit by providing documentation that the bodies had been willfully donated. Violators would be fined as much as $10,000.
Body Worlds, a major anatomy exhibitor, said it is not opposed to providing donor documentation. Another major exhibitor, Premier Exhibitions, said it obtained the bodies legally from Chinese medical and scientific organizations but lacks any documentation of identities.
Ma said "many entrepreneurs are using plastination to make outrageous profits by dissecting, mutilating and parading unwilled bodies around the world and in" California. She added, "Asking for consent and verification is not too much to ask" (Lifsher, Los Angeles Times, 1/25).