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Public interest more important than consent?

A visiting expert on medical law and bioethics says that always having to obtain family consent before removing body parts could be against the public interest.

Professor Bernard Dickens from the University of Toronto said the public must accept that body parts will be used for research if it wanted medical and forensic science to progress.

A visiting academic at the University of Newcastle, Professor Dickens was commenting on recent allegations of inappropriate handling of bodies and body parts at the Glebe Morgue in Sydney.

"Practitioners removing body parts always have the best intentions," he said. "By this I mean that they are removing the parts for medical research purposes; there is no malice or disrespect intended."

He said the public wanted and needed advances in medical and forensic science, but this could not occur without body parts for testing. Often it was not appropriate to ask for consent to remove body parts in the same breath as informing the family of the death of a loved one. Instead, more consideration needed to be given to what sort of consent was possible and appropriate.

Professor Dickens said a wide range of body parts were needed by researchers. "For example, a lot of fresh brain tissue is used for research on Parkinson's Disease. The public should not be surprised then if these organs are in demand," he said.

"The issue will only be resolved when both the medical community and the families of the deceased can reach a mutual understanding and respect of each other's needs and emotions."

"My fear is that if we as a society develop a higher sensitivity to using body parts for research, we will decline in our capacity to deal with new and emerging conditions such as the effects of new types of illegal drugs on the body, or understanding of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (the human form of Mad Cow Disease)."

He added body parts should never be taken just because they might one day be useful, but rather should only be used for specific purposes.

Professor Dickens also acknowledged that disrespectful behaviour reported from some morgue staff, such as those at Glebe, had to change. "Unfortunately a number of these jobs (such as working with bodies) are very gruesome. It's human nature that we react with humour - it's distasteful but it's a coping mechanism. We need to change this coping mechanism to one of respect, not humour."

In Canada, for example, bodies which come in to laboratories for study are given a ceremony where it is acknowledged that that person had a real life and real needs, he said.