Were bodies of Brazil's poor used for organ research?

Reports suggest some 3,000 bodies have been illegally buried in the cemetery of Perus.

 Brazil's prosecutors are investigating allegations that organs are being illegally taken from unidentified bodies and sold for medical research.There are claims that organs were taken from bodies without proper efforts to find the relatives and obtain their consent, prosecutors told the BBC.The Coroner's Service in Sao Paulo is the focus of the investigation.Officials of the Coroner's Service, or SVO, deny any illegal activity, saying procedures were followed at all times.Until recently, people who died in the street or in public hospitals were buried as paupers if their bodies were not reclaimed by relatives within 72 hours. The SVO says procedures have since been improved.Selling organs is against Brazilian law.

'Mass graves'

Sao Paulo's office of public prosecutors told the BBC their investigation, which began last November, was prompted by claims from relatives who said authorities had not made proper efforts to contact them before their loved ones were buried in the cemetery of Perus. 

 

Unidentified bodies are buried in mass graves marked only by numbers.

  

 Relatives claimed the authorities did not contact them before burying their loved ones.

 

Later, two witnesses also told prosecutors that organs from some of the bodies had been removed and sold for medical research.

Prosecutors say they currently have no material proof of trade in human organs.

But investigations suggest that over the last 15 years the bodies of 3,000 people have been taken from the autopsy centre to mass graves - even though they had documents identifying them.

'No legal obligation'

The SVO is run by pathology teachers from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sao Paulo - one of Brazil's most prestigious universities.

The SVO's director, doctor Luiz Fernando Ferraz da Silva, told BBC Brasil that the service acts "strictly within the law" and that bodies are "generally... buried intact".

"There are specific situations in which organs are used, but always with the purpose of being used for research," he said.

"But where patients' bodies are not claimed, that does not happen."

When asked about the allegations that organs were sold for medical research, he said that information required by the investigating authorities would be sent directly to them.

 Continue  reading the main story.

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