BRITAIN: British pathologists removed the brains from tens of thousands of human corpses over 30 years without the permission of the victims' relatives, the British government acknowledged yesterday.
In a reminder of scandals in the late 1990s, when hospitals were found to have secretly kept the hearts of dead children for research, the government said the illicit removal of brains had been "widespread in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s".
It said the scale of the scandal would never be known as records from the 1970s were sketchy, and many of the brains had been used for research or destroyed.
However, the government's Inspector of Anatomy, Mr Jeremy Metters, told a news conference that of 30,000 brains in storage in 2000, when a count of stored organs was carried out, more than half were probably taken without permission.
He made 34 recommendations to ensure the scandal is not repeated, and said the removal of all organs without consent should be made a criminal offence.
The scandal was brought to light by Ms Elaine Isaacs, from Manchester, whose husband, Cyril, died in 1987 after suffering mental health problems.
Medics took his brain for research without asking permission from his wife, who only found out about it three years ago while sifting through letters written by doctors at the time of her husband's death.
Ms Isaacs welcomed Mr Metters's recommendations, but said more should be done.
"I've been very, very angry for the past three years - even more than I was during the previous 13 years after my husband died," she told the news conference.
The British Medical Association (BMA) welcomed the report, but said that it should not be used to undermine organ donation.
- (Reuters)