Pennsylvania is the keystone
By admin on August 8, 2008
The Pennsylvania Judiciary Committee invited Harry Wu to testify regarding the Bodies Exhibits last week. ABC regarded this as national news with their report, and yet strangely no Pennsylvania news service thought it was either state or local news.
For me this has been a long and personal story. Pennsylvania is my birth state. The reaction of the people here has not been surprisingly mixed. When it arrived in Pittsburgh last year, there was a hero, Elaine Catz, who stood up and quit her job over these exhibits. In Pittsburgh you don’t quit your job lightly. This was a real moral stand Elaine took. For those of you who have not read her story, you really should. Its one that doesn’t come along just everyday.
Then, Johanna Haas, the Director of the Museum, who so vapidly fought - see the WQED debate for a really good conversation - for the ‘right’ of the museum to host the exhibit, left her job. And she did it so very conveniently in the weeks between the closing of the exhibit in Pittsburgh and NY State Attorney General’s condemnation. Very very convenient.
And then, the exhibits came to Harrisburg. This is the heart of the Keystone state. Some were very offended, including Rep. Mike Fleck who introduced legislation to regulate such activities.. Thank you, Rep. Fleck. Maybe out there in Elk County you still have enough fresh air to keep right and wrong straight.
As a result, Pittsburgh has been shamed. The Carnegie has tried to resist the idea that hosting the exhibit was wrong, but in fact a higher ideal of ethics has been brought to bear. Legislators are considering curtailing the museum’s funds based on this misstep.
And so now it will be interesting to see how the keystone state completes its chapter in this dehumanizing entertainment business.
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NY: first to pass regulation
By admin on June 21, 2008
Senator Alesi is another hero for human rights. He became aware through a nobodies4profit member, Joshua Pies, who was enraged about the exhibits in his town - - Rochester.
Cracking down on human body exhibits
http://rochesterhomepage.net/content/fulltext/?cid=17741 
Reported by: WROC-TV
Thursday, Jun 19, 2008 @10:03pm EST
Senator Jim Alesi (R-Perinton) says, “It’s human dignity and I think it’s also consumer protection because if people knew the origins, if they’re suspect, then they probably would be less likely to go to some kind of display like that Senator Alesi sponsored the “bodies exhibit” legislation.
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CA bill AB1519 (Ma) PASSES Judiciary + bodies business future?
By admin on June 12, 2008
With a vote of 3 yeas and 2 nays, Fiona Ma leads her state to be the first to stand up against the inhuman practise of displaying human remains for profit.
http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_1501-1550/ab_1519_bill_20080611_status.html
The bill now moves forward to the Senate Appropriations Committee. One very positive amendment was to have the Attorney General’s office, and not the California Science Center, issue permits. This makes for a much more objective process, and one with less risk of compromise. Afterall, the Science Center is currently hosting Body Worlds. And Gunther Von Hagen’s idea of what comprises SCIENCE is quite questionable, given his recent antics in Australia with “Gunther’s ER”.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/tv-reviews/gunthers-er/2008/05/30/1211654292604.html
We hope that all those good Californians who are donating their bodies understand the BodyWorlds probably has a surplus of bodies now, and the good Doktor must decide how they might best fuel his creativity in other directions. Afterall, who is to stop him, as long as he labels it ’science’ or ‘education’?
http://www.smh.com.au/news/tv-reviews/gunthers-er/2008/05/30/1211654292604.html
Is being a reality TV crashdummy more scientific than a traveling freakshow mannequin? He tried to sell body parts last year but there was an uproar and he backpeddled. He now has 10,000 bodies to play with.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,532934,00.html
What WILL he think of next? A sampling of past ideas may give us an idea.
Frankfurt Naked Nights: http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=de%7Cen&u=http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,302055,00.html
BrainCandy for Kids: http://www.kidzworld.com/article/4690-gunther-von-hagens-where-science-and-art-meet
WIRED reports on the Love Parade: “Von Hagens seeks inspiration in the energetic displays of young bodies “: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2001/07/45426
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Watch this space - Pennsylvania
By admin on June 10, 2008
The exhibits haven’t settled well in the heart of Pennsylvania - Harrisburg. Only 50 people showed up for opening day. The local protest group JustSkipIt and Jason Smith had been working for some weeks, recorded in print, radio and TV with their outrage.
http://www.pennlive.com/patriotnews/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/121142221462160.xml&coll=1
The local press is doing their best to get out both sides of the story
http://www.pennlive.com/patriotnews/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/1212717355193600.xml&coll=1
But the heat was really turned up last Wednesday when Representative Mike Fleck presented his bill in the House. He said that some legislators weren’t aware of the controversy but, after an apparently HEATED debate in the House, that this was definitely no longer the case!
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08157/887527-115.stm
In this Pittsburgh Post Gazette editorial the author is saddened by the fact that it was the NY Attorney General who felt compelled to take action, and wondered where was the PA Attorney General Tom Corbett. Well, we know that Mr. Corbett has known about this controversy since the exhibits were in Philadelphia - some years ago - and the PA anatomists contacted him in concern.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08159/888099-192.stm
So, NOW the PA AG is shamed into taking action
http://www.inyork.com/entertainment/ci_9487579
We applaud the brave citizens of Pennsylvania and encourage them in this fight for the right thing! For inspiration, we’re including this great and heart breaking article from just one state over in Cincinnati. We’re very encouraged that some citizens are brave enough to ask the hard questions, the uncomfortable moral broccoli in the cheeseburger culture. Thank you, Peter Bronson!
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080529/COL05/805290307/1009/col05
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NY Attorney General rules AGAINST Premier!
By admin on May 29, 2008
And not only that, they’re going to have to give REFUNDS!
Oh, now that is a beautiful thing. That is just too good to believe.
Please link to the ABC site and support Anna Schecter and her team with your comments!
Crackdown on Ghoulish ‘Body Exhibitions’
New York AG Says Company Profited From Individuals That May Have Been Tortured or Executed in China
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4950595&page=1
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ABCNews: Lawmakers call for Crackdown
By admin on May 24, 2008
Lawmakers Call for Crackdown on Bodies Exhibits
Bill Would Prohibit Importation of Any ‘Plastinated’ Human Body Part Into the U.S.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4902350&page=3
Republican Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri introduced the bill that would prohibit the importation of any “plastinated” human body part into this country. Atlanta-based Premier Exhibitions uses “unclaimed” Chinese bodies infused with silicone through a process called “plastination” for display across the nation in an exhibit called, “Bodies…The Exhibition.”
“This is a human rights issue about affording human dignities to people around the world,” said Rep. Akin, adding that he is concerned that the Chinese people in the exhibit did not give permission for their bodies to be on display. “We cannot verify the source of each body coming from China, so we decided the best approach was to say that in our country, you cannot import plastinated bodies,” he said.
Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, is one of 21 co-sponsors of the bill. “I am not confident that the people whose bodies are in this exhibit consented,” he said. “China’s record on human rights should give us pause in any issue involving human remains imported from that country.”
Premier Exhibitions says that the “unclaimed” bodies on display were legally obtained from Dalian Medical University.
Premier’s former CEO Arnie Geller, who is still on the company’s Board of Directors disputed the allegations on “20/20.” He said that his suppliers assured him that “these are all legitimate, unclaimed bodies that have gone through Dalian Medical University.”
He also said he was appalled at the allegations that some of the bodies from his Chinese suppliers might be those of executed prisoners. “If these can actually be attributed to even the people that we’re doing business with, we would have to do something about that immediately,” Geller said.
Premier general counsel Brian Wainger said the company has another exhibit called “Bodies Revealed” that they say exhibits only donated bodies from China. He said the company still uses plastinated “unclaimed” bodies for exhibitions and is working with the same suppliers.
Human rights activists and protesters of the exhibit say that “unclaimed” in China could mean anything. “In the U.S. we have very specific laws as to what constitutes ‘unclaimed.’ Premier’s use of ‘unclaimed’ is ‘unknown,’” said Sarah Redpath, who runs a Web site protesting the exhibit out of her home in North Carolina.
Redpath also argues that there should be more government regulation over the importation of plastinated bodies. “We need our elected officials, not profiting entertainment companies, to regulate this industry,” she said.
U.S. Customs has said that since the plastination process changes the nature of the human remains, plastinated body parts can be imported as plastic objects, not as human bodies.
Akin is outraged. “That is the same rhetoric that oppressive governments around the world have used to dehumanize people. This is a human body. Just because you infuse plastic into it does not change that,” he said.
Akin’s bill would not affect current shows because the remains are already here. It does not single out any particular bodies exhibit or company that performs plastination. Under the bill, only bodies donated and plastinated domestically would be legal to display. Penalty for importation of plastinated bodies would be a fine of up to $10,000 per violation.
Other companies that would be affected include Corcoran Laboratories, a Michigan-based company that imports plastinated body parts from China and advertises them on their Web site to the public. They also sell the plastinated parts to medical schools for teaching purposes.
Gunther von Hagens who invented the plastination process puts on another show featuring plastinated bodies called “Body Worlds.” He, too, would be affected as his plastination factory is located on the German-Polish border. Von Hagens says all his bodies are donated and that he no longer works with corpses obtained from China.
The bill has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. No hearings have yet been scheduled.
California and Pennsylvania state representatives have introduced bills requiring the exhibitions to provide documentation proving that each body on display comes from a person who legally consented. The Pennsylvania bill has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee while the California bill is on the State Senate floor.
Related
PHOTOS: Anatomy of Worldwide Body Trade
N.Y., China Investigating Black Market in Bodies
PHOTOS: Human Bodies on Display: Where Do They Come From?
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Bodies Exhibit: Harry Wu speaks out
By admin on May 19, 2008
Amazing Wu still speaking up
Sunday, May 18, 2008 Cincinnati: The Enquirer
Peter Bronson
The first slide showed four executed men lying in bloodstained snow, with plastic bags tied around their heads and their hands bound behind them. The crowd at the University of Cincinnati’s Tangeman Ctr was so quiet you could hear a jaw drop.
The next slides showed two people in white lab coats stripping the bodies, then hosing them down. The last one showed the naked body of a young man on an autopsy table in a lab, with a hole drilled in his face.
“You see the hole next to his nose? They are ready to plastinate,” said Harry Wu.
“This is not an automotive show, not a computer show, not a furniture show. These are human beings,” he said in his soft-spoken, slightly fractured English. “This is good knowledge for you to know.”
Wu was talking about “Bodies … The Exhibition,” which has sold 150,000 tickets ($11 to $23 each) at the Cincinnati Museum Center. The knowledge he wants us to know is that the skinned corpses displayed in entertaining poses at the Center were real people - who may have been executed in Chinese prisons.
“This is only a small part,” he said. “I could show you a lot.”
He did. Starting with his own amazing story.
Wu knows a side of China we won’t see in any Olympic moments - as dark as solitary confinement; as ugly as the muddy fields where prisoners are shot through the heart while crews stand by with scalpels to harvest organs before the corpse cools.
Wu was a student in 1960 when he was arrested. “I was a capitalist and a Catholic,” he said. “I spoke my mind.” Strike three.
He got no trial, no hearing. For 19 years he was a slave laborer in the Laogai - “labor reform” in English, and “gulag” in any language.
When he got out in 1979, he found out his father had been arrested, tortured and killed. His mother had committed suicide. His brother renounced the family to save himself, but was arrested, tortured and killed.
Wu survived beatings, torture, broken bones, starvation and despair so wrenching he cried for two years and tried to find the will to kill himself. “I exist as a beast,” he said.
He came to America with $40 in his pocket, and walked the streets of San Francisco at night, with no place to sleep. But he kissed the ground. “I was a free man. I was happy. Whatever happen to me much better than life in the labor camps.”
Yet his heart told him, “Before you die, you have to do something for the people.”
He began to speak out again. He testified in Congress about the Laogai. China releases no information about executions, not even to families, he said. But one document showed 24,000 in 11 months. Wu talked about the rubber boots, shoes and paper clips we buy, made by prison labor. He said China is second in the world for harvesting organs, “but 95 percent of the organs are from executed prisoners.”
He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his courage. Repeatedly, he risked his life by going back to China to document labor camps, executions and other human rights abuses - including plastination of bodies for exhibits like the one in Cincinnati.
In 1995, Wu was arrested again in China, accused of “stealing state secrets.” Pressure from the U.S. pried him loose 66 days later. “Am I a terrorist?” he asked. “Am I a bank robber? A rapist?”
No. To the Communists he was a bigger threat: a man with the courage to speak up.
He still does. “In China, the prison camp is a profit center,” he said.
And so is the “Bodies” exhibit.
Wu toured the show the day he spoke at UC. “Today I feel very depressed because they are native Chinese,” he said. Museum Center officials said they chose the most ethical exhibit. But it’s actually one of the few that has no consent for any of the bodies and no certainty about their origin.
“I’m not going to say that all these in Cincinnati are executed prisoners,” Wu said. “Maybe only one or two. Maybe none.”
But it’s clear that hundreds of executed prisoners were sold to plastination labs for $30 each, he said.
“Join together,” he urged. “Protest the exhibition. Don’t let your children go.”
“Let’s say all are Jewish, black, Mexican. What do you think? Kind of racism there?” he asked. “I am kind of disappointed the people are not responding to that. But I realize money is very important. The exhibit makes money. It is wrong, but today money dominates the truth.”
The bodies in the bloodstained snow don’t lie. If they could, they might ask: How can executions be shocking - if corpses are entertainment?
Peter Bronson is a columnist for The Enquirer. E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 513-768-8301.
COMING PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS OF ‘BODIES’The Archdiocese of Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission and other groups that brought Harry Wu to Cincinnati have more events planned.
Discussions of the “Bodies” exhibit will be held at the
Freedom Center on Tuesday, and at the Museum
Both meetings are from 6 to 8 p.m.• More information about the discussions
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Federal Bill introduced! Support HR5677
By admin on May 7, 2008
Missouri Congressman Todd Akin has introduced a Federal bill regulating the importation of plastinated bodies. If you have wanted to do something about these exhibits, this is your big chance! Please write even a brief email or place a phone call to your Congressman expressing that you want them to support bill HR5677. Include that you want the bill to have a hearing. We were told emphatically by Congressman Akin’s office that this kind of grassroots communication is taken VERY seriously by the Congress members. If they hear from their constitutents they will more likely pay attention when the bill is introduced.
You can read the bill by going to the library of congress:
http://thomas.loc.gov/
Do a search by Bill Number (HR5677)
Find your Congressman by typing in your zipcode here.
http://www.house.gov/
Email them! Call them! They represent YOU.
Please tell them that a nation that would accept this outrage apathetically is not the kind of America you want.
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‘Bodies’ CEO Resigns After ‘20/20′ Report
By admin on April 23, 2008
‘Bodies’ CEO Resigns After ‘20/20′ Report
Company Maintains Geller Decided to Leave for Retirement, Not Because of ‘20/20′ Investigation
By ANNA SCHECTER
The CEO of a company that runs a controversial exhibit of “plasticized” Chinese bodies, Premier Exhibitions, has resigned, according to an SEC filing by the company.
The company’s general counsel, Brian Wainger, said Geller stepped down because “he decided it was time to retire.” Wainger said Geller “is not involved with the day-to-day business of the company” but will continue as chairman of the board of directors.
The “20/20″ report disputed the company’s and Geller’s account that all of the bodies came from a medical school in Dalian,
Geller denied Premier knowingly used the bodies of executed prisoners. Wainger said Premier would soon announce changes in the way the company runs the exhibitions.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would not comment on the ongoing investigation.
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50 sponsors for PA bill; NM medical students protest
By admin on March 11, 2008
Representative Mike Fleck introduced HB2299 on Friday in Pennsylvania, which would regulate the use of human remains for profit exhibitions like the one currently running at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center. This makes Pennsylvania the latest state government to propose legislation against bodies exhibits. The pioneer was Washington state with HB1253 last year. This January Fiona Ma’s introduction of AB1519 in California. Then, after the 20/20 report Congressman Chris Smith urged the federal probe and we’ve heard that NY is working on a bill.
Read here the original Post Gazette report on the Pennsylvania bill.
And read and comment on what Pittsburgh Blogger Char has to say on the topic.
At the same time, in NM there is a new company on the body exhibit scene: Lynx. And medical students there have organized a petition and are protesting.
You can show your support by writing to these legislators and by posting to Char’s blog or any of the newspapers that take comments on these articles.
Keep up the good work!
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