The family of Army veteran Carl Victor Honey is claiming that after he died in 2022, his body was parceled out to various entities for money by the University of North Texas Health Science Center.
According to People, Honey was homeless and had paranoid schizophrenia when he died. Still, his body was deemed unclaimed and became one of 2,350 to be donated to the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth for medical research.
His ex-wife, Kimberly Patman, cast doubt on the assertion that his body was unclaimed, telling NBC News, “His son has his same name. How could he be unclaimed?”
According to NBC News, what happened to Honey is not an isolated incident; 11 additional families have come forward with stories about how the science center sold the parts of deceased loved ones whose bodies were determined to be unclaimed.
Honey’s body was frozen, cut into pieces and sold for money. His right leg was donated to a Swedish medical device company for $341, and a Pittsburgh medical education company paid $900 for his torso.
“We have become aware of issues within our Willed Body Program and that failures existed in its management and oversight,” the University of North Texas’s Science Center posted on its website. “The program has fallen short of the standards of respect, care, and professionalism that we demand. The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth extends its deepest apologies to the families who have been impacted.”
The statement continued, “HSC has taken the following immediate actions: Permanently closing HSC’s BioSkills Lab. Immediately suspending operations of the Willed Body Program pending the outcome of an internal assessment and review by an external global consulting firm with expertise in health care. Taken personnel actions, including terminating program leadership.”
Patman doesn’t believe that the university even tried to find her or other members of Honey’s family. “He never wanted to be an organ donor,” Patman told NBC. “We talked about it. I don’t believe they tried to find us. You can find people. NBC found me in a day. You can find people.”
NBC News notes that it was only after its investigation shared details with the public that the university took action for months; as it reported on the story, the university defended its practices.
The NBC News investigation has its roots in the stories concerning Mississippi’s failure to notify families before burying their loved ones in pauper’s graves. Multiple outlets, including BLACK ENTERPRISE, covered those stories.
The investigations NBC conducted in those cases led them to North Texas, where officials found a way to dispose of the unclaimed dead, which could be costly to bury or cremate. According to its investigation, Dallas and Tarrant counties gave those bodies to the university’s health center, which then used the unclaimed bodies—often Black, male, and homeless—as teaching canvasses for medical students, selling parts to entities.
According to Thomas Champney, an anatomy professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, this practice is unethical.
“The county and the medical school are doing this because it saves them money, but that doesn’t make it right,” Champney said. “Since these individuals did not consent, they should not be used in any form or fashion.”
A judge in Tarrant County, Tim O’Hare, the county’s top elected official, agreed.
O’Hare, who previously voted to allow the university to continue its arrangement, told NBC News that he would look into his options to ” end any and all immoral, unethical, and irresponsible practices stemming from this program.”
O’Hare’s office also released a statement damning the practice. “No individual’s remains should be used for medical research, nor sold for profit, without their pre-death consent, or the consent of their next of kin. The idea that families may be unaware that their loved ones’ remains are being used for research without consent is disturbing, to say the least.”
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