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There are three sections to this topic...
Infighting and the corpse show brands
How bodies are produced
Issues to consider
You can download the whole topic in word
The Corpse show industry is massive (£250 million) with the largest processing plants based in China using production lines to process corpses and reduce costs. Two main rival companies exist; the Institute for Plastination, which, under the supervision of Dr von Hagens, secures and manufactures corpses for his Body Worlds exhibitions, and Premier Exhibitions Inc. of Atlanta, which leases corpses to use in its USA touring shows "Bodies: the Exhibition".
Lured by high profits, others have created their own touring corpse shows. There are other companies taking advantage of the main plastination factories at Dalian in China. This has led to additional shows similarly titled and derived from von Hagens' Body Worlds, that have shown around the world under names such as "Bodies Revealed," "Mysteries of the Human Body," and "The Universe Within".
Infighting and copyright issues
Fierce competition among corpse show producers has led to accusations of copyright theft, unfair competition and trafficking in human bodies. The fierce rivalry between Premier Exhibtions, a publicly listed company based in Atlanta, and Dr von Hagens' company, the Institute of Plastination, has moved to the courts, over everything from copyright claims to rights to the name "Body Worlds." They have each publicly hinted that their rival is engaging in unethical behaviour in acquiring bodies in China.
It is reported that part of the reason for the tension is that Premier's sole supplier of bodies, Dr Sui Hongjin, was a former general manager of Dr von Hagens' operation in Dalian.
"All the copycat exhibitions are from China," Dr von Hagens said. "And they're all using unclaimed bodies."
Mr Geller, the chairman of Premier, counters Dr von Hagens: "He says his full body specimens are all donors, but his organs may not be from donors. Listen closely to what he says."
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The Body Worlds brand
The aim of the Institute for Plastination is to produce human specimens and make them available both for basic and continuing medical training as well as for the general medical education of the public.
It is the exhibitions for the 'education of the public' that causes issues; these were originally developed as 'artistic' displays of corpses and toured Europe and Asia for a decade. Von Hagens received a panning from many art critics in the UK when he exhibited for the first time in London in 2002. Shortly after this, and possibly seeing the success his rival Premier was having with its more science-focused show, Dr von Hagens re-branded his work as 'educational' and presented it as the 'original' real corpse science exhibition under the Body Worlds brand.
The Body Worlds exhibitions, which feature preserved human bodies and body parts, have been seen by nearly 25 million visitors across the world.
First seen in Japan in 1995, the exhibitions are now among the most popular attractions at American science and natural history museums, and have taken an estimated £250 million in revenue.
Body Worlds first visited London in 2002 and 850,000 people attended.
The mastermind behind Body Worlds is Dr Gunther von Hagens, a German scientist who in 1977 devised the technique for preserving anatomical specimens by infusing them with polymers, a process called plastination.
He began touring the world with his plastinated bodies, displaying preserved, skinless human corpses with their well-defined muscles and sinewy tissues. These were the first public anatomical exhibitions of real human plastinates.
Some body parts are on display, e.g. a coal miner's lung, a metastasized liver, but what draws the crowds are the dissected corpses posed in lifelike attitudes: a man riding a horse, a woman pregnant with an eight-month-old foetus, people skateboarding, ski-jumping, and dancing.
Von Hagens has been repeatedly accused of using bodies from deceased persons who did not give consent, such as prison inmates and hospital patients from Kyrgyzstan and executed prisoners from China (the latter led to a lawsuit against the German magazine Der Spiegel, which von Hagens won).
He maintains that all full bodies exhibited in Body Worlds came from donors who gave informed consent. As he controls the supply chain of bodies for exhibition this may be true, the origin of smaller single body parts is questioned and the origin of bodies held by the Institute for Plantation, which will not be used in exhibitions, has also been questioned.
A commission set up by the California Science Center in Los Angeles in 2004 confirmed von Hagens' claims. However, von Hagens does not make the same claim for all bodies prepared by his Plastination Institute, only the ones exhibited in Body Worlds.
The Body Worlds website says: "Recent media reports have wrongfully stated that Gunther von Hagens' BODY WORLDS uses bodies other than donor bodies in its exhibitions. Gunther von Hagens' BODY WORLDS refutes the statements in their entirety, as they are factually incorrect. Gunther von Hagens' BODY WORLDS is the only anatomical exhibit that uses donated bodies, willed by donors for the express purpose of serving BODY WORLDS mission to educate the public about health and anatomy. Excluding a small number of specimens acquired from anatomical collections and anatomy programs, the plastinated specimens on display in Gunther von Hagens' BODY WORLDS exhibitions stem from a unique Body Donation Program established in Heidelberg, Germany in 1982, later managed by the Institute for Plastination (IfP) established in 1993."
The Institute for Plastination has a donor roster of over 8500 individuals, mostly German. In the UK an estimated 180 have signed to give their body to the Institute.
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Bodies: The Exhibition brand
Promoted by Premier Exhibitions Inc. of Atlanta, "Bodies: The Exhibition" is more science-oriented than " Body Worlds," but has rented bodies from China's Dalian Medical University, which, it has been alleged, have acquired the unidentified, unclaimed corpses from police.
Media reports have claimed that Premier admits that none of the people in their exhibits gave consent to be plastinated or displayed after death. While showing dead bodies raises many ethical issues, even larger ones arise when one considers that the source of the corpses is questionable.
Premier does not appear to deal directly with any of the plastination factories that have sprung up in China. In August 2005, New York Times correspondent David Barboza interviewed Premier's chief executive, who stated that, while they have "traced the whole process," the company relies on a supplier to acquire the corpses. When Mr Barboza went on to speak with officials at Dalian Medical University, he found that they had no record of Premier's supplier obtaining the bodies there. So where the bodies originate from was a mystery.
Premier created 'Titanic' the exhibition of ship artefacts, "Our body exhibitions will probably surpass 'Titanic,' which was seen by 17 million people worldwide," said Arnie Geller, the chief executive of Premier. "And it will probably do that in half the time."
Premier says that it has "[Chinese] government certificates that guarantee none of the bodies had been a murder victim, prisoner, mental patient or aborted foetus." The Chinese government's integrity on this matter has been questioned by civil rights groups.
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