Human Body Exhibit
Human Body Exhibit
BODIES… The Exhibition is an exhibition, operated by Premier Exhibitions, Inc., featuring real, whole and partial body specimens that have been dissected and preserved through a plastination process, displaying the complexity of the human body.
Premier Exhibitions is a major provider of museum quality touring exhibitions throughout the world, which produces, manages and tours other exhibitions including Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, Dialog in the Dark and Star Trek: The Exhibition.
Dalian Medical University in China through its Dalian Medical University Plastination Co. subsidiary is the source of the cadavers which have undergone plastination.
A competing version is Body Worlds.
Exhibition organization
The exhibition is set up so visitors journey through the human body starting with the skeletal system, and moving through the muscular, nervous, circulatory, respiratory, digestive and reproductive systems; as well as fetal development and the treated body. Containing about twenty whole bodies in total, each exhibition uses real human bodies that have been preserved permanently by a process called "polymer preservation" that prevents the natural decay process.
Some of the specimens are arranged so that they are performing activities such as playing basketball or conducting an orchestra. Along the way are other displays showing organs, healthy lungs across from smoker's lungs and a casting of all of the arteries and veins contained within the human body.
Preservation process
The bodies are prevented from decay by process called polymer preservation, in which human tissue is permanently preserved using something similar to liquid silicone rubber. The essence of this process is dehydration using acetone, and a polymer bath. Polymer is a combination of multiple plastics/rubbers in liquid form; once the body has been bathed in it and placed in a vacuum chamber, all water leaves when the acetone relieves itself and the polymer sets in. The process from which this form of preservation is derived is the original mortuary science using formaldehyde.
Criticism
Prior to the 2005 U.S. premiere, the Florida Attorney General expressed the opinion that the State Anatomical Board's approval should be required. The Board fought the Tampa exhibit, with its director expressing the opinion that the exhibit should be shut down. Premiere Exhibitions officials disagreed, claiming that the Board had jurisdiction only over medical schools and not museums; the exhibit opened two days ahead of schedule at the Tampa Museum of Science and Industry.
Questions regarding the origins of the bodies continue to be raised. In 2006, reporting from Dalian, China for the New York Times, David Barboza described "a ghastly new underground mini-industry" with "little government oversight, an abundance of cheap medical school labor and easy access to cadavers and organs." Premier representatives say "the bodies were not formally donated by people who agreed to be displayed." The director of the Anatomical Committee of the New York Associated Medical Schools (NYAMS) worries that "you have no documentation of who this is."
20/20 produced a major report exposing the "secret trade in Chinese bodies." Claiming that bodies are sold on the black market for $300, the report spawned not only a series of other articles but also a Congressional inquiry, an investigation by the NY Attorney General, and the resignation of Premier's CEO Arnie Geller.
Under the settlement agreement with New York City, Premier Exhibitions agreed to post disclaimers stating that they could not independently rule out the possibility that remains of Chinese prisoners were used in the production of the displays.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo concluded his investigation of Premier, finding "The grim reality is that Premier Exhibitions has profited from displaying the remains of individuals who may have been tortured and executed in China. Despite repeated denials, we now know that Premier itself cannot demonstrate the circumstances that led to the death of the individuals. Nor is Premier able to establish that these people consented to their remains being used in this manner. Respect for the dead and respect for the public requires that Premier do more than simply assure us that there is no reason for concern. This settlement is a start."
In contrast to BODIES...The Exhibition, the first organization to use plastination with human bodies, "Body Worlds", maintains a more rigorous standard for donation and keeps appropriate records of the donors. A commission set up by the California Science Center in Los Angeles in 2004 confirmed von Hagens' commitment to ethical practices, and published its Summary of Ethical Review (Body Worlds: An Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies Summary of Ethical Review 2004/2005 ). The commission matched death certificates and body donation forms, and verified informed legal consent of the bodies in the exhibitions. However, to ensure the privacy and anonymity promised to body donors, Von Hagens' Institute for Plastination maintains a firewall between body donors' documentation and finished plastinated bodies. To date, more than 9,000 individuals have pledged to donate their bodies to the Institute for Plastination in Heidelberg, in Germany.
In June 2007, Elaine Catz quit her job of 11 years as science education coordinator for the Carnegie Museum of Science in protest over the exhibit, citing religious objections and questions regarding provenance, including the issue of reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong in China.
In 2007, a Washington State bill was introduced to ban exhibits of bodies without clear documentation of consent, and a similar bill was introduced in January 2008 by California legislator Fiona Ma.
In June 2008 New York State passed a bill requiring anyone showing an exhibit that uses real human bodies in museums across New York to get a permit to show where exactly the bodies came from. Senator Jim Alesi sponsored the bill.
Professional ethicists, human rights activists and religious leaders have also objected. "Given the (Chinese) government's track record on the treatment of prisoners, I find this exhibit deeply problematic," said Sharon Hom, the executive director of the advocacy group Human Rights in China. Professor Anita L. Allen, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist, argued spending money to "gawk" at human remains should raise serious concerns. Thomas Hibbs, Baylor University ethicist, compares cadaver displays to pornography in that they reduce the subject to "the manipulation of body parts stripped of any larger human significance." Even if consent were to be obtained, Rabbi Danny Schiff maintains that we should still question what providing "bodies arranged in showcases for a hungry public" says about a society. Harry Wu, a long-time human rights activist, terms the practice of obtaining exhibit specimens from China "immoral" and describes how the Chinese label of 'unclaimed' on bodies may imply that families were not notified of the death.
Regarding the educational concerns around these exhibits, St. Louis Diocese Archbishop Raymond Burke directs Catholic Schools there to avoid field trips, citing serious questions for Catholics. Prior to the exhibit's opening in Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese endorsed the educational content of the exhibition, while noting that it would not be appropriate for everyone and welcoming continued discourse regarding the place of such exhibits in society. Rev. Daniel Pilarczyk, Archbishop of Cincinnati, issued a statement: "I do not believe that this exhibit is an appropriate destination for field trips by our Catholic schools."
In 2006, citing concern over how "some kids will process these images," Abbotsford, British Columbia School Superintendent Des McKay barred field trips to exhibits of plasticized human beings. In an editorial, Lutheran Reverend Christoph Reiners questioned the effect on the values of children. Elaine Catz, who helped coordinate field trips for the Carnegie Science Center prior to resigning in June 2007, maintains "it teaches that, once he is deceased, there is nothing wrong with taking a person's body without his consent; it teaches that there is nothing wrong with exploiting the dead in order to make a profit, as long as it is in the name of science or education or art. It teaches that it is incredibly easy to dehumanize others."
On April 21 2009 a French court ordered the closure of the exhibition in Paris on the grounds that it offends public decency and lacks respect for the dead giving the organisers 24 hours to close up or face fines of 20,000 euros a day. The court said that exhibiting dead bodies for profit is a "violation of the respect owed to them" and "under the law, the proper place for corpses is in the cemetery".
Venezuela customs incident
On 4 March 2009, after a week of presence in Venezuela, the exhibition in Caracas was closed by customs officials, and CICPC (Scientific, Criminological and Penal Investigations Corps) agents and a National Guard detachment, explaining that the bodies and parts were declared as "plastic" and that their intent was to determine the actual composition; if the exhibits are actual human remains this could constitute customs fraud, but if they turn out to be plastic replicas the organizers could be charged with false advertising.
This is in line with the manner in which specimens were brought into the United States
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