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19 Brown J. World Aff. 243 (2012-2013)
The Body of the Enemy

handle is hein.journals/brownjwa19 and id is 491 raw text is: The Body of the Enemy NANCY SCHEPER-HUGHES DONALD BOSTROM Professor International Journalist University of California, Berkeley Donald Bostrrm Media AB THE BIOMEDICAL ABUSE AND PLUNDER of dead bodies for usable organs and tis- sues is a widespread and extremely controversial practice that continues to this day. This article documents a troubling history of abuse of dead bodies that were brought to the Israeli National Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir (a neighborhood ofTel Aviv) for autopsy during the crucial and tumultuous period between 1988 and October 2012. Allegations of tissue and organ confiscation were longstanding, beginning in 1999 when a newly trained Israeli patholo- gist, Dr. Chen Kugel, joined the institute and realized that something was very wrong. He observed legal autopsies ending in illicit dissections; he witnessed the removal and retention of organs, tissues, and other body parts that were 243 later stockpiled and distributed for various ends that included medical training, scientific research, pseudoresearch, and skin and cornea transplants. Dr. Kugel sought to make the institute's administration aware of the illicit practices of individuals such as Dr. Yehuda Hiss, a state-appointed senior pathologist who served as the institute's first director. Dr. Kugel's efforts were initially rebuffed by the government, which set up a weak investigation of the situation and ultimately failed attempts to clean up the institute in order to rescue its reputation. The struggle also cost the ethical pathologist his position. As long as the story was kept inside Israel, the government and the Israeli Ministry of Health tolerated the illicit and arguably criminal practices.' NAicy SCHEPER-HUGHES is professor and chair of the doctoral program of medical anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. The author of a dozen books, edited volumes, monographs, and 300 scholarly articles, she is director of Organs Watch, a medical human rights project, advisor to the World Health Organization and the UN Office on Drugs and Organized Crime, and alumni member of the Institute for Advanced Study's School of Social Science in Princeton, NJ. DONALD BOSTROM has reported from more than 60 countries around the world for newspapers, magazines, and TV channels since his first interview with Yasser Arafat in 1985. He is the author of eight books, three of which are cookbooks, and has been awarded for his coverage of conflict in the Middle East. Copyright @ 2013 by the Brown Journal ofWorldAffairs SPRING/SUMMER 2013 * VOLUME XIX, ISSUE II

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