Open letter to Mrs Louise Hunt, Senior Coroner, Birmingham & Solihull Coroners Service
- Target:
- Doctors and other healthcare workers
- Region:
- United Kingdom
- Website:
- blogs.bmj.com
In 2010, we highlighted in the BMJ and Mail on Sunday how the exhibition of plastinated Chinese body parts in Birmingham was a breach of medical ethics given that the source of the bodies was from "unclaimed bodies" from China without specific consent for commercial exhibitions. There is a loop hole in the Human Tissue Act (HTA) which means that consent is not considered for imported tissue. There is much circumstantial evidence to support the belief that these bodies may be from at worst executed prisoners, and at the very least they are not from people where they or their families have given specific consent for a commercial exhibition. All the senior staff at "Real Bodies" previously worked for the organisers for "Bodies Revealed" and both organisations are based in Atlanta and use the same anatomist in Dalian, China. Doctors in Australia have recently called for "Real Bodies" to be closed down over ethical concerns regarding the source of the bodies. Due to the loophole in the HTA, and the fact that:
1)the cause of death is unknown
2)there are grounds to believe that the cause of death was unnatural
We are calling for the Coroner to Birmingham and Solihull to open inquests in order to try and establish the cause of death into the approximately 20 Chinese bodies currently at the NEC.
To reiterate (as we told BBC Midlands Today), there is no suggestion that Imagination or indeed their Chinese suppliers have broken any local laws, rather the loophole in the Human Tissue Act facilitates such exhibitions, see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-44870748
Dear Mrs Hunt
We the undersigned are UK based healthcare workers and doctors who have concerns that there is an exhibition at the NEC of more than 20 Chinese bodies in Birmingham where:
1)the cause of death is unknown
2)there are grounds to believe that the cause of death was unnatural
As such we believe that under the Coroners Act, you have grounds to investigate the cause of death as the deceased are currently within the Birmingham and Solihull area until August 19th. There is no suggestion that the import of the deceased into the UK by Imagine Exhibitions was illegal, as there is a loop-hole in the Human Tissue Act which means that issues of consent are not considered in imported tissue. The organisers have not been able to provide any information with regards to their exhibits in Australia recently regarding consent or cause of death, merely stating that they are ‘unclaimed’. The bodies are sourced from the same anatomist and university in Dalian, China- Hong Jin Sui- who is also associated with the exhibition ‘Bodies Revealed’ which previously exhibited in Birmingham in 2010, organised by Premier Exhibitions. The majority of the senior staff at Imagine Exhibitions have also worked for Premier Exhibitions- and both companies are based in Atlanta, Georgia. In New York, Premier has the following disclaimer on their exhibit:
“This exhibit displays human remains of Chinese citizens or residents which were originally received by the Chinese Bureau of Police. The Chinese Bureau of Police may receive bodies from Chinese prisons. Premier cannot independently verify that the human remains you are viewing are not those of persons who were incarcerated in Chinese prisons.”
Given our suspicions regarding both the origin of these bodies and their cause of death, we call on you as Birmingham coroner to investigate in order to try and establish the cause of death. Although 70 doctors attempted unsuccessfully to highlight these concerns in 2010, this was too late (the last day of the exhibition) to warrant a proper investigation. Given that these bodies are within your jurisdiction until next month, we call on you to investigate to see if it is possible to establish the cause of death in these ~20 Chinese individuals.
Yours sincerely
Dr David Nicholl FRCP PhD GMC 3317831
Consultant Neurologist, City Hospital Birmingham
Dr Adnan Sharif, Consultant Nephrologist, University Hospital Birmingham
Secretary to DAFOH (Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting)
Dr Jenny Vaughan FRCP PhD
Consultant Neurologist, Charing Cross, London
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The Open letter to Mrs Louise Hunt, Senior Coroner, Birmingham & Solihull Coroners Service petition to Doctors and other healthcare workers was written by Dr David Nicholl and is in the category Human Rights at GoPetition.