Medical University Faces 'Body Crisis'

The head of the Legal Medicine Organization states that Iran's Medical University is facing a 'body crisis' and has proposed importing bodies to meet the university's needs. Ahmad Shojaei made this statement in an interview with the Wednesday (July 4) edition of the 'Shahrvand' newspaper. He added that the current shortage of 'bodies' has become a 'serious problem' for medical universities, and 'for this reason, we are trying to import bodies from abroad.' This official further stated that 'unidentified bodies or bodies that no one has claimed after six months are legally given to universities, but their number is very small.' Ahmad Shojaei noted that this number of bodies 'does not meet the university's needs at all, and for this reason, we have proposed to import bodies from abroad, but we have not yet succeeded in doing so.' He also mentioned 'limited' imports of bodies from some countries but did not specify which countries. The head of the Legal Medicine Organization denied reports of 100 unidentified bodies being delivered weekly to the organization in Tehran, stating, 'Those who have made these claims should come and provide evidence.' Shojaei added, 'These reports are for creating a narrative and are published due to people's ignorance. They think we have bodies and are not giving them, while in reality, we have no bodies.' This official also denied the existence of a 'body mafia' in Iran, stating, 'All of this was a lie. They wanted to create a narrative against the Legal Medicine Organization.' He added, 'We have a mafia for everything except for bodies because there are no bodies to be bought and sold.' These statements from the head of the Legal Medicine Organization were a response to claims of a 'body mafia' made in a letter last year by members of the Anatomy Examination Board. Last year, these members pointed out the problems of obtaining bodies for medical universities and stated that 'the Legal Medicine Organization does not provide them with bodies, and they are forced to buy bodies from mafias.' This letter, written on February 25, 2017, to the head of the Legal Medicine Organization, raised the question of 'why conditions have arisen that have deprived the community of anatomists of the right to freely and unobstructedly utilize unidentified bodies for scientific purposes.' The members of the Anatomy Examination Board mentioned that universities have turned to a 'mafia market' to obtain bodies, paying the cost of 'a full blood money' for a body. They warned that 'if students and specialty assistants do not practice on bodies, they will have to acquire diagnostic and therapeutic skills on patients' bodies at the cost of increased morbidity and mortality.' On February 15, 2017, the 'Shahrvand' newspaper reported, citing a physician, that 'a few years ago when I was a student at Azad University, the university had three bodies for anatomy courses. Medical students must complete nine units of anatomy of the neck, trunk, and limbs during their studies, which takes about three semesters, while the three bodies our university had been used for over three years and, due to repeated dissections, were almost decomposed and unusable.'