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

nofrills to Sophia0... 2012/08/05 16:09:29

u sound like 'toxic waste in your level of interpre....YEA?

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nofrills to Rebecca 2012/08/10 18:07:51

even in death..there is rejection...only shows 'regression of humans'!!

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Rebecca to nofrills 2012/08/10 19:43:46

that is true, huh?

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sy 2012/08/04 02:14:59

Foul

+2
Too bad, the students could have gotten some unique medical insights into obesity.

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Sandman366 2012/08/04 01:02:01

Foul

+1
They're only going for $2m? They could probably get $5-10, that's just disrespecting the dead. Saying he's too fat for science (perhaps they should start a liposuction class) and then taking two weeks to send him back, without any preservation.

Everything about that is wrong.

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ScooterballUSA 2012/08/04 00:23:10

Foul

It take a more experienced surgeon to get around the cellulite not to have an infection after the fact! 60% of Americans are suffering from OBesity.

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Crypt_Heart 2012/08/04 00:19:18

Foul

+3
I'm sorry...because it'd be a little tougher to dissect...? Are you kidding me? I'm starting to think these 'Medical' colleges don't actually do any work and want everything given to them...preferably pre-dissected.

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jody.cotton3 2012/08/04 00:09:25

Foul

+1
you can still learn a lot from his body,,more to work with,,,,

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Scooter... to jody.co... 2012/08/04 00:24:55

+1
Volunteer Coroners would love that !

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jody.co... to Scooter... 2012/08/04 20:46:25

yes they would,,,,,,

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C. C. Rider 2012/08/04 00:02:03

Foul

OMG! NOW shead is reporting stories on hating DEAD fat people. Oh woe is us.

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SA 2012/08/03 23:06:27

Foul

+2
You would think that they would learn a lot from this person, but I guess they don't agree.
It is strange to me. Guess you have to be healthy and thin to donate your body these days....

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Brosia 2012/08/03 21:45:49
El Prez 2012/08/03 21:31:50

Fair

+6
If they can't use it, they can't. they delay in returning it was inexcusable.

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Bibliophilic 2012/08/03 21:25:05

Foul

+4
Studying obese bodies could be useful. Also why was his body allowed to sit around for 13 days?! That body was once a living human being.

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Rdtourist 2012/08/03 21:19:02

Fair

+3
Most med schools really like to study that which is normal in most respects, unless of course they are studying the grotesque.

BTW, after a med school gets through flaying and dicing a practice corpse, what do they do with the remains, make them into dog food? No, they cremate or dispose of them in accordance with donation requests.

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kayte 2012/08/03 21:16:02

Fair

+1
The man did a good deed, sure. But he made a donation. Other People are not (nor should they be) forced to accept donations. He can rest in peace knowing he attempted to help others. on the other hand, the time it took for the body to be turned down is a bit messed up. But unfortunately thats how life is sometimes. Life isn't fair. It never will be.

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thє вluє wαndєrєr 2012/08/03 21:06:25
HK5SBR 2012/08/03 21:03:11

Foul

+1
This shouldn't stop SCIENCE.

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Jenni 2012/08/03 21:02:01

Fair

+3
Why did everyone choose foul? Yes it unfair they didn't return him for a while, but they have their own requirements and it's not their fault if he's a large person. 300 pounds??????

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Cat 2012/08/03 20:59:54

Foul

The medical school should have asked another school it they wanted the body or they should have refrigerated and returned the body much sooner for a funeral service.
Also my husband weighed nearly 300 last year when he passed on. His corneas were donated for transplant. His other organs were too toxic for transplant due to kidney failure but a medical school used his body to train new back surgeons. If a 290 pound body was OK some medical school could have used a 300 pound body.
My husband was always a giving man and he wanted to keep on giving after death. I feel sorry for this man and his family that he never got his wish.

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...Kat... 2012/08/03 20:54:43

Foul

+1
They should be glad whenever they get a body. It's a body. Deal with it. You gotta learn how to research obese bodies anyway. I get it's more difficult. You still gotta learn. They should be happier, having him be obese. Maybe they can find something new, or cure something. Like obesity problems or whatever... Not only was it rude, but disrespectful & neglectful of the family. They could have very easily preserved his corpse. Ridiculous. Some students they are, as well as the teacher(s).

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daniel wayne 2012/08/03 20:50:32

Foul

take it from a mortician, what i suspect happens far more often than people would guess. funerals have gotten so expensive (thanks to sci) that a lot of people are donating their bodies to science. so many that they can select only the ones who die from something they want to study. where this happens, the excess bodies are rejected or shipped in a refrigerated truck to the northeast, where there are many medical colleges. being over 300 lbs isnt a unique medical condition.

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Small man big mouth 2012/08/03 20:46:32

Foul

Foul but I gurantee you at this moment he does not care. He has bigger problems now.

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brittany 2012/08/03 20:27:24

Foul

thats disgusting bring a real dead body to show to a school.

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Sophia0... to brittany 2012/08/05 04:00:14

It was a med school. Y'know, where they dissect things? To learn about human physiology? Would you like them to dissect you alive? No, I don't believe you would. That's why they bring DEAD bodies to MEDICAL schools. Get it now?

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brittany to Sophia0... 2012/08/05 22:13:29

thats why they PUT PEOPLE TO SLEEP TO DO SURGERY GET IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!

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YOMOMMA to brittany 2012/08/05 14:11:52

This is why I ain't a Doctor.

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Mr. Won... to brittany 2012/08/05 16:17:08

If you think that's disgusting read some history books on Leonardo da Vinci. Besides being a famous inventor and painter he dabbled in carving up human bodies to make his famous highly detailed and very life like drawings of a human's inner parts.

While never proven, aside from the half a dozen or so volunteers, daVinci is rumored to have paid to have freshly buried corpses dug up, brought to his lab in secret where he experimented on them and made his elborate drawlings from.

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brittany to Mr. Won... 2012/08/05 22:15:22

ugh. i guess thats where the Da Vinci Code comes from then. but i never seen the movie or read the book.

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Mr. Won... to brittany 2012/08/05 23:13:05 (edited)

No, that's a popular fiction story. This is real life. Leonardo daVinci was a famous painter, inventor that lived back from mid 1400's to early 1500's. Many famous painting like the Mona Lisa. His picture and her's. He also painted the famous Last Supper.

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brittany to Mr. Won... 2012/08/06 00:06:21

yeah hes one of my favorite artists.

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overzero 2012/08/03 20:01:39

Foul

+2
Science means knowledge - how are they ever going to learn to tackle the unexpected if they only dissect what is deemed easy? Aside from that, tearing a gut bucket apart might teach us all something about obesity!

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YOMOMMA to overzero 2012/08/05 14:16:05

It is to learn and see what the organs look like...a normal, healthy one is needed and I am sure they use obese corpses when studying obesity...

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Joey 2012/08/03 19:23:47

Foul

+1
There are multiple fouls on the play!!. First in terms of a science this would have been a great opportunity to work with someone big. This is a medical school they are going to run into big people when they get out into the world . Next to keep the body for so long . There is just no excuse of that .

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adeenmckenziekennedy 2012/08/03 19:03:29

Foul

+2
That is foul and unfair. How could they reject his body and then keep it for 13 days? How cruel!

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GothicaVende††aSquiggles\(#... 2012/08/03 18:59:29

Foul

$GothicaVende††aSquiggles\(#_#)/$

+1
The bigger, the better. He probably has extra organs...

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Boo 2012/08/03 18:46:44

Foul

+1
If medical students were only going to treat "acceptable size" patients, the medical school's actions might be reasonable; however, this is not, nor has it ever been the case. Operating on obese patients poses greater challenges and risks, and students should have experience in dealing with all the situations they may encounter in the real world after they are licensed to practice medicine.

This is a politically correct "statement" from the medical school, which is totally inappropriate. There have been many times throughout history when medical schools did not have adequate numbers of cadavers for the number of students they were training. In earlier times, they were reduced to grave robbing just to have a real body to study! I have a friend whose father donated his body to science, and he weighed around 300 pounds. The medical school his body was donated to had no problem accepting the donation!

A more frightening possibility is that this is a precurses to what the medical teaching institutions expect from Obamacare. Maybe they do not expect to be treating obese patients in the future, because their care is going to be restricted to hurry them to an earlier death. What is this country coming to?! It isn't good.

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AndyBoy 2012/08/03 18:44:55

Foul

Guess they should just boil me down for whale blubber!

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overzero to AndyBoy 2012/08/03 20:04:26

+1
Only if they can preserve your sense of humour!

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