Dead Man Is Too Fat For Science: Fair or Foul?

by mrosen814 Posted 2012/08/02 20:00:00

Related Topics: Health, Science, George Cardel, Weird News

797 votes
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	Fair	306 votes	38%
	Foul	491 votes	62%

59-year-old George Cardel from Queens wanted to donate his body to science after he died. But a medical school crushed his final wish by not accepting his corpse, due to its... er... large size.

Even worse, "the 59-year-old man’s body wasn’t returned for 13 days — so badly decomposed it required cremation." Former New York City chief medical examiner Michael Baden said it’s not surprising that a medical school would turn down an obese corpse. Baden goes onto say, “an obese person would be harder to dissect because of the amount of fat tissue under the skin."

NYDAILYNEWS.COM reports:
George Cardel’s final wish died with him — doomed by his hefty 300-pound frame. The Queens mechanical engineer had hoped to donate his body to science, but that dream was dashed when a medical school rejected his corpse because of its girth, a $2 million lawsuit claims.

+23

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KeeganTheAwesome 2012/08/03 00:09:31 (edited)

Foul

+23

Shame on the school for keeping the body for so long without even trying to preserve it... and after rejecting it too! Most coroners don't keep bodies in their offices for that long without chilling them and replacing the blood with preservatives to keep the bacteria at bay. Heck, I even bet the U.S. prison system sends dead prisoners back to their families sooner than that, and with their bodies preserved too.

Shame on them, also, for (more than likely) disadvantaging students by not teaching them how to deal with fat bodies. Let's just hope every body that lands on these students' surgery/autopsy tables is thin as a twig, if the school isn't going to do anything about their curriculum's flaws.
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More polls by mrosen814

haaaaaa to JPKittee 2012/08/06 16:46:42

+1
The did say in an article, "Other facilities turned down the remains as well, reports Gothamist." http://www.inquisitr.com/2915... I do agree their treatment while in their possession was uncalled for

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Heisenberg 2012/08/05 21:02:18

Foul

+1
Normally I would say foul, but I can understand the school not wanting to do it.

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Reikyrr 2012/08/05 20:36:15

Fair

+1
They might have handled the body better though...

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Lorelei Lee 2012/08/05 19:31:36

Foul

+1
I say foul because the students are missing out on a learning experience. Face it, a lot of the human population, in the U.S. especially, has become obese or close to obese in the last fifty years. Your going to see a lot more fat people dead or alive on a surgical or mortuary table. Also that is disgusting and horrible that they didn't send the body back to his family right away. I would probably sue too.

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haaaaaa to Lorelei... 2012/08/06 17:00:37

According to wikipedia this is only their second year, so they would probably still only be learning basic sciences; they would not be ready for clinical experience (which is done at hospitals). I'm sure they just want to disect him and learn basic gross anatomy of healthy people, not path.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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BT 2012/08/05 18:43:40

Fair

+1
But if they couldn't use it, they should have sent it on to someone who could.

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sandiellette 2012/08/05 18:16:56

Foul

+2
How do they expect to do research without exploring conditions surrounding poor health. Is that not one reason for cadavers. This fella probly felt his experience would be valuable to science - which it would have been. Ooohhh! It's too hard to dissect! WHA?!? And you want to be a doctor???

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NOT14U2 2012/08/05 17:53:30

Foul

+1
2 million dollar lawsuit where do they get these ideas ?

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boneman1 2012/08/05 17:23:15

Fair

+2
You have to understand how cadavers are used in medical school. Students in Gross Anatomy dissect them to learn about the human body. They want medical students to learn what "normal" human anatomy looks like. If a student spends their time dissecting someone that was grossly obese the odds are their organs, arteries and veins won't be normal. Using a cadaver that big wouldn't serve the students well that had to work on it and could put them at a disadvantage down the road.

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Peewee 2012/08/05 17:17:22

Fair

+1
Oh good grief.

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lolitalovely 2012/08/05 17:01:08

Foul

+1
rejecting it: fair enough but letting it decompose: that's just disrespsectful.

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L1 2012/08/05 16:38:22

Foul

+1
If they couldn't use it, they should have made an effort to preserve it and sent it back to the family so that he could be properly mourned for and buried or cremated etc...

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Haley 2012/08/05 14:48:42 (edited)

Foul

+2
How could they do that ?! If it wasn't usable, then ok fine. But just because this man was overweight doesn't mean you can treat him and his body with utter disrespect. You have a responsibility to return his body promptly and in a preserved state. This is so disgusting. and these immoral people are going to train our doctors?

Why would anyone ever donate their body to science again if our universities and others responsible for these bodies treat them and their families with such cruel apathy? UGH so wrong

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YOMOMMA 2012/08/05 14:05:03 (edited)

Foul

+1
We need to find out what happens inside fat people... very good specimen. There are many obese people and it would be very interesting.

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Bob 2012/08/05 13:02:14

Foul

+2
Do you think he cares? He could get a lawyer and sue: sounds like discrimination.

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haaaaaa to Bob 2012/08/06 16:33:57 (edited)

He's dead. He can't get anything

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Bob to haaaaaa 2012/08/07 12:45:28

What!?

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Watermusicranger 2012/08/05 08:55:15 (edited)

Foul

+2
Someone needs to kiss someones butt

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Bob to Watermu... 2012/08/05 13:03:06

+1
Oh ya! Booty. :-)

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lennon_... to Bob 2012/08/06 16:59:11

+3
Okay, I'm asking this question: what is it that people find attractive about butts? Although I'm a girl, I sometimes try to wrap my head around this... and any way I look at it, butt's are disgusting. I'm simply curious- can someone tell me? kthanks :)

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Bob to lennon_... 2012/08/07 12:47:40

I just like butts... not to big or to skinny. Just the way I am.

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lennon_... to Bob 2012/08/07 17:30:31

hmmm... maybe I ought not think about it too much. :)

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Watermu... to lennon_... 2012/08/09 07:53:36

Healthy Butts are cool.

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Resp 2012/08/05 08:46:08

Fair

+1
The guy was so fat that his belly button made an echo.

He was so fat that when he went to a Macy's parade he was wearing ropes.

Badda boom...

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Night71 2012/08/05 08:43:43

Fair

+1
Ha ha, that's a lot of blubber cutting.

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lennon_love 2012/08/05 07:37:06

Fair

+2
I thought you couldn't mess with someone's last will andd testament...? Ah, well: don't give out unhealthy body parts. I think scientists know what they're doing!

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Playerazzi 2012/08/05 04:53:36 (edited)

Fair

+3
If they can't use it, then they can't use it.

It's like giving you a tire that won't fit your car, or clothes that don't fit. Fuggedaboudid.

They should have been quicker with the decision and returned the body right away, though. But you know, when you donate your body to science, it gets used in worse ways than decomposition. In fact, one of the ways science uses a body is to let it decompose and check out what happens exactly. Check out Mary Roach's book "Stiff".

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Sophia030394 2012/08/05 04:51:20

Foul

+2
If it was too difficult to dissect, so be it. But letting it decompose for 13 days, then sending it back in the condition that they did was terrible. To see a loved-one decomposed after being sent back from having an unfulfilled wish must've caused much more heartbreak, and a good amount of disgust.

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savagesarge 2012/08/05 03:24:39

Fair

+2
Totally fair, lipidic tissues are a pain to separate from other tissues...

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wilsonmja 2012/08/05 00:38:40

Fair

+3
But foul for not returning it sooner.

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Mr. Won... to wilsonmja 2012/08/05 15:53:10

+1
Right. I had an uncle (average size) that donated his body to science. Had a brief wake and funeral first. What's shocking is how cruel the medical school was. It is obvious just looking at the corpse if or not it was too big for the purpose intended. To let it decay then send it back to the family almost two weeks after the fact is shameful.

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nerdygirl 2012/08/04 23:48:12

Fair

+2
Saying this is foul is ridiculous. The medical school knows what kind of cadavers they have a use for. Has it occurred to people that the body has to be lifted? They probably should have returned it sooner,but there is no point in their keeping it if they have no use for it.

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Pm 2012/08/04 23:10:22

Fair

+1
How could it be a foul?

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JimTheGeek 2012/08/04 21:18:29

Fair

+2
What's foul is the lawsuit stemming from it. The School could have just dumped his body (or whatever they do with it when they're done) and no one would have been the wiser.

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nerdygirl to JimTheGeek 2012/08/04 23:49:37

Someone wants a pile of free money.

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elvira 2012/08/04 19:37:17

Foul

Students need to know how to operate on obese patients.

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savages... to elvira 2012/08/05 03:25:18

People need to stop eating crap

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elvira to savages... 2012/08/05 12:21:43

I couldn't agree with you more. As they say in the computer world GIGO "Garbage In Garbage Out".

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savages... to elvira 2012/08/07 00:31:51

We say that in the sound recording area too ;)

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james.b... to elvira 2012/08/05 04:51:28

They dissect the body to see where organs are located. Not to perform surgery.

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