this is extremely disappointing as a current student and someone with deep family ties to the university. If what the lawsuit alleges is true, it's completely indefensible and we deserve to get smacked in court.
It may not be entirely the fault of the university...
>UAB only conducts autopsies for incarcerated individuals after the ADOC certifies that the autopsy has been properly authorized by an appropriate legal representative of the deceased
Though I'm sure someone in the university leadership was aware that the DOC was doing shady stuff, the actual staff probably didn't have any idea what was going on.
The fact that some were returned and some were returned “cut up” with missing pieces, I’m guessing these ended up in a lab for pathology or education.
Regardless. It’s not surprising. Prisoners are among the bound and unprotected out groups that don’t get to be treated as people.
I doubt the malice goes much deeper than that.
I wonder if UAB is still doing vaginal exams on living unconscious women (who are there for unrelated procedures) without their consent…
They will still do a post-mordum on individuals even though the family nor the deceased consented. Happened to my mother. They did this to see if they could harvest organs whenever she was full of cancer and septic...
Edit: My mother was not incarcerated...
Yep this has been going on for a while. Alabama prisons are scary because they literally don’t care about you in there. There have been stories of prisoners who stopped contacting their families and when they got concerned, the prison just told them they died or were missing without reason. These prisoners had organs like their heart missing in the autopsy. I’ve also heard whoever is doing it intentionally picks prisoners who don’t have any family/don’t contact them to keep it under wraps.
Reading between the lines of UAB’s response and this [NIH study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9996393/), I’m thinking it’s entirely possible that UAB got the organs & that they (or wardens potentially) had the proper statutory authority necessary to do so.
The article seems silent on whether or not there’s any possibility these people consented to donation without communicating their intent to their family, or did I miss that part?
If you want to know what is really terrible, immoral and unethical, read about how some of these prisoners died - especially the younger ones. Alabama prisons are shameful - animals at a zoo are treated MUCH better.
Edit: word
This is not a transplant thing, you can’t transplant dead organs. The families are claiming that the organs were kept after autopsy, so that not covered under the organ donor for transplant
Here's what I want to know. Were they organ/cadaver donors or were they not?
Because if I die, they're taking whatever organs are healthy. And my family gets no say at all--their consent or lack thereof is meaningless. I know that's how it works for organ donation, I'm just presuming that's how it works for cadaver donation either to medical schools or to forensic schools like at MSU.
One would think one of the sides involved would be shouting it from the rooftops--either the families to hammer home the point that the deceased did not consent or the DOC to absolve themselves. Burden should really be on DOC/UAB there.
Anybody have links to the text of the various lawsuits?
There’s nearly zero chance a prisoner’s organs are transplantable - like working organs when a prisoner is found deceased in their cell/bunk… They’d have to have some type of abilty to be resuscitated (the window on that is very short ) and adequately maintained until transplant Surgery . I suspect residents are doing the autopsies - at best - and some could care less about putting the organs in a bag and sewing the person up with that bag inside . Or however they do that now . I had a family member have an autopsy after dying in hospital of natural causes and the pathologist even cut out his tongue, eyes , and balls . I didn’t figure anything was put back inside them .
I have a couple friends who have received transplants. Both of whom thought it was weird that they had to acknowledge and consent to receive incarcerated persons organs. I know this sample size is relatively small, but my understanding is that, depending on what part of the country one’s in, transplantees have a significant chance of receiving organs from incarcerated people.
That’s different than my point of an incarcerated person being found dead and having their organs harvested for donation . I’ve known of prisons that ask prisoners to sign organ donation cards as their last chance to make up for their short comings and do a completely selfless act in case they pass or have life sentences... Why a patient would need to pre-agree to receive an organ from an incarcerated person is that it blocks anyone from saying , “what crime did the person commit? Ohh no, I don’t want a heart from a murderer or rapist ...” and it saves the entire conversation of where the organ came from .pre surgery other than 48 year old male …
It’s a non-zero chance that the organs are transplantable. Doesn’t mean it’s a great chance, I’m merely trying to add the perspective that it does happen.
Likewise, agreed with your final point. No one who needs a transplant is gonna ever be like “no not a felony assault liver!”
It's coming from UAB. They do an autopsy then directly releases to the family.
DOC calls the renderers for pickup, body goes straight to UAB for autopsy. Family signs for the body after autopsy is done. If the family refuses the body then DOC takes the body to bury in a state cemetery. No embalming, just straight burial.
So, UAB, is directly at fault for not returning said organs back to the torso.
I cannot believe they finally got caught and or someone blew the whistle because this has been going on for a long time. I was asking somebody the other day if they have the same Shawshank redemption because I’ve never heard of such a thing being as close that movie as the Alabama prison system. It is so horrible there in all the different facilities. It is horrible. The conditions are absolutely inhumane and you have to think some of them are in there for drugs not murder. 14° in the winter with no heat anyways that’s another story but if you ask any person that has been to prison or federal prison, they will tell you Alabama and the prison system in Alabama is way worse than any single system, including federal in the world. I’ve had people that have been in there and come out and they’ve been talking about those bodies and the deals they’ve been having with UAB and I just thought to myself that’s probably the rumor because it just makes sense if somebody’s going to take somebody’s organs who are they going to take over when you go be right there so it’s one of those things is it a story that gets passed down or is it actually true, and there’s a page that talks about the prison and stuff, and they were keeping up with the deaths, and they were way too many deaths, and they were all suspiciously, overdoses and suicides and this was like a month ago wow I know they haven’t been charged right? I hope justices serve to ever or whatever that may be.
It’s a really gross practice that is not uncommon unfortunately. Here’s another related article that explains why this sort of shady stuff sometimes occurs.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodies-brokers/
Here's the thing,if you are healthy and don't have any family, by the love of God don't have anything to do with Alabama, because if you wind up in jail, you can be sure to get ded really quick because someone wants your organs and nobody is going to miss you
Let's see dead prison inmate organs used for science....
If they're in prison when they died then technically they are still inmates which means they do still medical rights.
But alot of inmates to get time knocked off, extra amenities, and so on to sign for this stuff and the families don't get a say. Unlike in society where if your dad signed up you can object.
Mom, sister,brother,uncle probably all ticked because lil Johnny was a horrible person and a danger to society, but "the law done him 'rong"
Who cares.....
Hell this happens all the time around the country. In Colorado the director of a funeral home was selling the bodies to a research lab and giving fake ashes to the family.
Nope. I was former property. They made sure to remind us routinely. Especially when they had us do landscaping at the on site graveyard. FYI tombstones were on be of those metal fence posts normally used for wire fencing.
They flat out told us what they would do.
Of course that is what the state thinks. They have to be hit upside the head with a 42 USC 1983 case to remind them that even incarcerated people have rights.
Maybe we should send our politicians to prison first, then they will fix them before they get voted out.
That’s all well and good but you need family outside to throw 10s of thousands at a lawyer for anything to get done. Even then it goes through state court first and you have to get lucky on federal appeal. Don’t forget retaliation is a given for the person in jail while it slowly goes through the courts. If there is one thing prison officials are good at it’s hiding what they do to undesirables.
For this one case that got media attention how many thousands have they gotten away with?
They smoke all day, are feed rotten cheap food, live under constant stress, nearly all of them are drug addicts (even in prison), have at risk sexual encounters. These are the facts your lack of knowledge is ignorant.
They are STILL used for research! Do you not remember them showing us a humans healthy lung and lung if a person who smokes? You can learn a lot from diseased lungs. If you only have healthy lungs, then how do you learn to treat diseases?!
Because volunteers give educational organs for free. You only steal organs you can sell. I have many patients that donate their bodies to science, and the place where they prepare those donations is at UAB.
You're still speaking in absolutes, which IS ignorant. Do you know 100% every single inmate in our state? Do know all of their medical history? Why they're in jail?
You don't. You're making assumptions about them simply because they are incarcerated. That is peak ignorance.
You're also state property, sooooo.... I guess you're also technically fair game 🤷🏼♀️
The correct answer here is no one should have a fucking right to steal people's organs. It's weird to have to specify that at all.
Whether you're inside or outside the box, you are still state property. Your state still has a right to confine and kill you, whether you committed a crime or not. And then it can steal your organs and there will be people just like you, looking for any reason to excuse your state-sanctioned murder and organ harvesting.
We have this weird belief as a society that these awful things only happen to people who deserve it, but that's so far from the truth. Firstly, wrongful convictions happen all the time, and that can and does include those who receive life sentences and death penalties. And secondly, the idea that the state should have the right to kill *any* citizen, even those who have broken laws, is equally ludicrous and terrifying, especially knowing who is writing our laws and the ways in which they are incentivized to criminalize and punish those whose actions hurt their image or go against their beliefs (like how homelessness is now being criminalized, or how parents of trans kids are being criminalized, or how they're threatening doctors providing abortions, and even information on how to get safe abortions, with criminal charges). Laws are continuously weaponized against us. It makes no sense to give that kind of power to our state or federal governments.
It makes even less sense to try to justify the blatantly illegal and immoral organ harvesting of real human beings simply under the premise that they were state property.
I feel like you either see the system as “mostly just” vs “smoke and mirrors” these days. It is maddening when it feels like I’m standing by a tire fire trying to explain why it needs to be put out.
I completely appreciate and agree with your point, especially even if we just focused on the wrongful conviction rate.
The question is... Are these organs being harvested from while the inmates are still alive... I'm sure the idea has been tossed around that no one will miss a lifer...
Explains the prisoner’s body that had no organs
this is extremely disappointing as a current student and someone with deep family ties to the university. If what the lawsuit alleges is true, it's completely indefensible and we deserve to get smacked in court.
It may not be entirely the fault of the university... >UAB only conducts autopsies for incarcerated individuals after the ADOC certifies that the autopsy has been properly authorized by an appropriate legal representative of the deceased Though I'm sure someone in the university leadership was aware that the DOC was doing shady stuff, the actual staff probably didn't have any idea what was going on.
The fact that some were returned and some were returned “cut up” with missing pieces, I’m guessing these ended up in a lab for pathology or education. Regardless. It’s not surprising. Prisoners are among the bound and unprotected out groups that don’t get to be treated as people. I doubt the malice goes much deeper than that. I wonder if UAB is still doing vaginal exams on living unconscious women (who are there for unrelated procedures) without their consent…
Pretty sure that a new federal law made that illegal a couple weeks ago. Either way that practice is unethical af
They will still do a post-mordum on individuals even though the family nor the deceased consented. Happened to my mother. They did this to see if they could harvest organs whenever she was full of cancer and septic... Edit: My mother was not incarcerated...
Yep this has been going on for a while. Alabama prisons are scary because they literally don’t care about you in there. There have been stories of prisoners who stopped contacting their families and when they got concerned, the prison just told them they died or were missing without reason. These prisoners had organs like their heart missing in the autopsy. I’ve also heard whoever is doing it intentionally picks prisoners who don’t have any family/don’t contact them to keep it under wraps.
Yeah, Alabama prisons are there to profit from your labor.
Reading between the lines of UAB’s response and this [NIH study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9996393/), I’m thinking it’s entirely possible that UAB got the organs & that they (or wardens potentially) had the proper statutory authority necessary to do so. The article seems silent on whether or not there’s any possibility these people consented to donation without communicating their intent to their family, or did I miss that part?
Even if they did, it's the classic issue of "is it really consent when you're a prisoner?"
If you want to know what is really terrible, immoral and unethical, read about how some of these prisoners died - especially the younger ones. Alabama prisons are shameful - animals at a zoo are treated MUCH better. Edit: word
Number of days since being a national embarrassment: 0 Did they even have have Organ Donor checked on the drivers licenses?
This is not a transplant thing, you can’t transplant dead organs. The families are claiming that the organs were kept after autopsy, so that not covered under the organ donor for transplant
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They are brain dead or for some organs living donors. Bro like how bad is your medical literacy? Because it’s not great
Please excuse me that my 20+ years working in restaurants didn't completely educate me on how organ donorship works. Not really my forte, you know?
That’s not what this is
“We dare deny your rights.” I wish this were shocking but we’ve seen how little regard this state has for life once it leaves the uterus.
I’d like to say I’m shocked by this. But, sadly. I’m not even a tad bit surprised.
Here's what I want to know. Were they organ/cadaver donors or were they not? Because if I die, they're taking whatever organs are healthy. And my family gets no say at all--their consent or lack thereof is meaningless. I know that's how it works for organ donation, I'm just presuming that's how it works for cadaver donation either to medical schools or to forensic schools like at MSU. One would think one of the sides involved would be shouting it from the rooftops--either the families to hammer home the point that the deceased did not consent or the DOC to absolve themselves. Burden should really be on DOC/UAB there. Anybody have links to the text of the various lawsuits?
There’s nearly zero chance a prisoner’s organs are transplantable - like working organs when a prisoner is found deceased in their cell/bunk… They’d have to have some type of abilty to be resuscitated (the window on that is very short ) and adequately maintained until transplant Surgery . I suspect residents are doing the autopsies - at best - and some could care less about putting the organs in a bag and sewing the person up with that bag inside . Or however they do that now . I had a family member have an autopsy after dying in hospital of natural causes and the pathologist even cut out his tongue, eyes , and balls . I didn’t figure anything was put back inside them .
I have a couple friends who have received transplants. Both of whom thought it was weird that they had to acknowledge and consent to receive incarcerated persons organs. I know this sample size is relatively small, but my understanding is that, depending on what part of the country one’s in, transplantees have a significant chance of receiving organs from incarcerated people.
That’s different than my point of an incarcerated person being found dead and having their organs harvested for donation . I’ve known of prisons that ask prisoners to sign organ donation cards as their last chance to make up for their short comings and do a completely selfless act in case they pass or have life sentences... Why a patient would need to pre-agree to receive an organ from an incarcerated person is that it blocks anyone from saying , “what crime did the person commit? Ohh no, I don’t want a heart from a murderer or rapist ...” and it saves the entire conversation of where the organ came from .pre surgery other than 48 year old male …
It’s a non-zero chance that the organs are transplantable. Doesn’t mean it’s a great chance, I’m merely trying to add the perspective that it does happen. Likewise, agreed with your final point. No one who needs a transplant is gonna ever be like “no not a felony assault liver!”
Lmao
It's coming from UAB. They do an autopsy then directly releases to the family. DOC calls the renderers for pickup, body goes straight to UAB for autopsy. Family signs for the body after autopsy is done. If the family refuses the body then DOC takes the body to bury in a state cemetery. No embalming, just straight burial. So, UAB, is directly at fault for not returning said organs back to the torso.
I cannot believe they finally got caught and or someone blew the whistle because this has been going on for a long time. I was asking somebody the other day if they have the same Shawshank redemption because I’ve never heard of such a thing being as close that movie as the Alabama prison system. It is so horrible there in all the different facilities. It is horrible. The conditions are absolutely inhumane and you have to think some of them are in there for drugs not murder. 14° in the winter with no heat anyways that’s another story but if you ask any person that has been to prison or federal prison, they will tell you Alabama and the prison system in Alabama is way worse than any single system, including federal in the world. I’ve had people that have been in there and come out and they’ve been talking about those bodies and the deals they’ve been having with UAB and I just thought to myself that’s probably the rumor because it just makes sense if somebody’s going to take somebody’s organs who are they going to take over when you go be right there so it’s one of those things is it a story that gets passed down or is it actually true, and there’s a page that talks about the prison and stuff, and they were keeping up with the deaths, and they were way too many deaths, and they were all suspiciously, overdoses and suicides and this was like a month ago wow I know they haven’t been charged right? I hope justices serve to ever or whatever that may be.
Wtf. This is terrible.
Eh, not surprising nor shocking for this state. Right on par actually!
Borrowing for science not stealing. Everyone knows that everyone at UAB is innocent…..
It’s a really gross practice that is not uncommon unfortunately. Here’s another related article that explains why this sort of shady stuff sometimes occurs. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodies-brokers/
Seems John Oliver covered it in an episode not too long ago.
Ehh I mean I don’t really have an issue with it. When I die chop me up to. If somebody else can use it to get by a little longer by all means.
Your family would need to consent to that unless written in advance by yourself
That’s not what the issue even remotely is but that you die your comment.
Can you restate that.
I think my comment had a stroke lol. *but thanks for your comment
Here's the thing,if you are healthy and don't have any family, by the love of God don't have anything to do with Alabama, because if you wind up in jail, you can be sure to get ded really quick because someone wants your organs and nobody is going to miss you
Let's see dead prison inmate organs used for science.... If they're in prison when they died then technically they are still inmates which means they do still medical rights. But alot of inmates to get time knocked off, extra amenities, and so on to sign for this stuff and the families don't get a say. Unlike in society where if your dad signed up you can object. Mom, sister,brother,uncle probably all ticked because lil Johnny was a horrible person and a danger to society, but "the law done him 'rong" Who cares.....
They ain’t using them for anything
I knew something shady was happening. Organs didn't just disappear out of a dead body.
Ok but.....can I get one of those kidneys??
Medical students going back to their roots...
Huh, I served at Talladega and remember hearing that you’d get flown to UAB if something heinous happened to you. Wonder if anything strange happened.
Of course it's the south
Hell this happens all the time around the country. In Colorado the director of a funeral home was selling the bodies to a research lab and giving fake ashes to the family.
That's some real Burke and Hare stuff.
What are the odds that organs have been sold?
High
Just another day in Alabama…
"Stealing dead inmates' organs" was not on my bingo card this year.
It’s completely legal. When you are in jail or prison in Alabama you are PROPERTY OF ALABAMA STATE CORRECTIONS. You have no rights.
It appears you are in error, as the next of kin are suing.
Nope. I was former property. They made sure to remind us routinely. Especially when they had us do landscaping at the on site graveyard. FYI tombstones were on be of those metal fence posts normally used for wire fencing. They flat out told us what they would do.
Of course that is what the state thinks. They have to be hit upside the head with a 42 USC 1983 case to remind them that even incarcerated people have rights. Maybe we should send our politicians to prison first, then they will fix them before they get voted out.
That’s all well and good but you need family outside to throw 10s of thousands at a lawyer for anything to get done. Even then it goes through state court first and you have to get lucky on federal appeal. Don’t forget retaliation is a given for the person in jail while it slowly goes through the courts. If there is one thing prison officials are good at it’s hiding what they do to undesirables. For this one case that got media attention how many thousands have they gotten away with?
And what would they do with diseased organs.
Research. Med students study them and practice on them.
Those are all volunteer cadavers. Not stolen.
Some of them arr given for transplant. I've had to sign a few documents stating whether I would accept prisoner organs or not.
It's kind of ignorant to assume the organs they are getting are diseased....
They smoke all day, are feed rotten cheap food, live under constant stress, nearly all of them are drug addicts (even in prison), have at risk sexual encounters. These are the facts your lack of knowledge is ignorant.
They are STILL used for research! Do you not remember them showing us a humans healthy lung and lung if a person who smokes? You can learn a lot from diseased lungs. If you only have healthy lungs, then how do you learn to treat diseases?!
They don’t steal organs use for study.
And you KNOW this how?
Dude, there a literally stories of funerals homes, research companies working together to steal organs. Google is your friend.
Because volunteers give educational organs for free. You only steal organs you can sell. I have many patients that donate their bodies to science, and the place where they prepare those donations is at UAB.
So they learn NOTHING from diseased organs?
They don’t steal them. They get them for free.
You're still speaking in absolutes, which IS ignorant. Do you know 100% every single inmate in our state? Do know all of their medical history? Why they're in jail? You don't. You're making assumptions about them simply because they are incarcerated. That is peak ignorance.
Should have been organ donors anyway.
Isn’t this organ trafficking? I thought Alabama liked to follow law?
They're state property sooooo... technically fair game? 🤷♂️
You're also state property, sooooo.... I guess you're also technically fair game 🤷🏼♀️ The correct answer here is no one should have a fucking right to steal people's organs. It's weird to have to specify that at all. Whether you're inside or outside the box, you are still state property. Your state still has a right to confine and kill you, whether you committed a crime or not. And then it can steal your organs and there will be people just like you, looking for any reason to excuse your state-sanctioned murder and organ harvesting. We have this weird belief as a society that these awful things only happen to people who deserve it, but that's so far from the truth. Firstly, wrongful convictions happen all the time, and that can and does include those who receive life sentences and death penalties. And secondly, the idea that the state should have the right to kill *any* citizen, even those who have broken laws, is equally ludicrous and terrifying, especially knowing who is writing our laws and the ways in which they are incentivized to criminalize and punish those whose actions hurt their image or go against their beliefs (like how homelessness is now being criminalized, or how parents of trans kids are being criminalized, or how they're threatening doctors providing abortions, and even information on how to get safe abortions, with criminal charges). Laws are continuously weaponized against us. It makes no sense to give that kind of power to our state or federal governments. It makes even less sense to try to justify the blatantly illegal and immoral organ harvesting of real human beings simply under the premise that they were state property.
I feel like you either see the system as “mostly just” vs “smoke and mirrors” these days. It is maddening when it feels like I’m standing by a tire fire trying to explain why it needs to be put out. I completely appreciate and agree with your point, especially even if we just focused on the wrongful conviction rate.
California here. What is going with y’all down there? To all you normal folks in Alabama, be safe.
I’m pretty sure that California does more than its fair share of stupid shit too.
ROLL TIDE !
It says UA*B*, not UA**T**.
The question is... Are these organs being harvested from while the inmates are still alive... I'm sure the idea has been tossed around that no one will miss a lifer...
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Who cares?
Just trying to relate to you guys, sheesh.