UCLA Cadaver Donation Program Will Be Allowed To Reopen
The University of California-Los Angeles "in the next few days" will be allowed to reopen its willed-body program, attorneys addressing the issue said on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reports.
A preliminary ruling by Los Angeles County Superior Court will allow UCLA to re-establish a willed-body program, with some modifications from its previous program. For example, donated bodies will be implanted with radio frequency identification chips to allow bodies to be tracked and video cameras will be installed at the program's new facility to allow campus police to monitor donated bodies.
The UC system approved the new regulations, which will apply at all five campuses with willed body programs. In addition, administration of the programs will be "more centralized," with administrators of the individual programs reporting to a systemwide official, in addition to deans of their respective medical schools, the Times reports.
The UCLA program is not expected to begin accepting donations until early next year, according to the Times (Lin, Los Angeles Times, 10/26).
Earlier this month, judges of an appellate court ruled that survivors of donors could not join together to sue the university for commingling remains and improper disposal. According to the ruling, the university clearly intended to use the cadavers in medical research, unlike private crematory services, exempting it from state laws against commingling remains.
The ruling came in a 1996 case, but UCLA attorneys assert that the ruling also applies to potential cases stemming from the disclosure earlier this year of UCLA employees' sale of donated cadavers (Los Angeles Times, 10/24).