
Dutch hospitals to drop U.S. body brokers, cite ethical concerns - Jerry2
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-bodies-dutch-exclusive/exclusive-dutch-hospitals-to-drop-u-s-body-brokers-cite-ethical-concerns-idUSKBN1O70RT
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Fnoord
The Dutch government (such as UWV) is using US cloud providers from which they
cannot be sure to get privacy from. The Netherlands should become more
independent from the USA, given the mutual benefit of allies is becoming more
thin.

~~~
solomatov
Why do you think US cloud providers cannot give privacy?

~~~
user5994461
Because they operate in another nation and are puppets to their government.
What do you think will happen when the NSA asks for full access or when the US
becomes enemy with the Netherlands?

Government and military cannot be outsourced overseas.

~~~
whatshisface
> _military cannot be outsourced overseas_

A lot of countries buy arms from the US. In fact I might even hazard to guess
that the US is the world's largest arms supplier. Perhaps you are right, maybe
the missiles will not work if fired in the wrong direction.

~~~
cf498
> Perhaps you are right, maybe the missiles will not work if fired in the
> wrong direction.

Dont know anything about missiles, but jets wont work. At least not the
Eurofighter for some reason.

[https://www.krone.at/568118](https://www.krone.at/568118)

Apparently an NSA contractor has to type in a key before every start.

>Damit die 15 Eurofighter auch wirklich starten dürfen, zahlte Österreichs
Bundesheer in drei Jahren 1,5 Millionen Euro an eine private US-
Sicherheitsfirma: Jetzt wurden die Kosten für jene am Fliegerhorst Zeltweg
stationierten zwei "Zivilisten" bestätigt, die jedes Aufsteigen eines Jets mit
einem aktuellen US-"Crypto-Schlüssel" für die Navigation und die Freund-Feind-
Erkennung zulassen müssen.

>In order for the 15 Eurofighters to start, Austria's federal army paid 1.5
million euros over three years to a private US security company. Now, the
costs for those two "civilians" stationed at the Zeltweg air base have been
confirmed, who have to allow every start with current US-"Crypto-Keys" for
navigation and friend or foe identification.

The ministry of defense denies that the two Americans from a not named US
company are NSA contractors. They claim the jets would fly without but without
encrypted navigation and communication. He also mentions the same situation
for Sweden and Switzerland.

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Tsubasachan
This isn't the first time. There was a scandal with blood donors. Its illegal
in the Netherlands to sell your blood but blood banks were importing blood
from the US.

Poor people shouldn't have to resort to selling their body.

~~~
humanrebar
Since the subject is the Netherlands, I have a hard time reconciling the
position that it should be legal to sell one's body (prostitution) but illegal
to sell one's body (blood, marrow, cadavers, organs upon death).

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TeMPOraL
Sure those two things _sound_ similar when you write them like this, but
they're completely different things. Prostitution is just another form of
labor, with above-average health & safety dangers, and where legalization
helps reduce those dangers. Selling body parts involves huge health risks and
(beyond blood & marrow), permanent body damage and/or death of the seller.
This is not something you absolutely don't want people to feel pressured into.
It scales up to serious abuse and suffering.

~~~
humanrebar
I think "completely different" is overstating it. If the paternalistic
instinct is to say people who sell body parts are prone to abuse, certainly
the same can be said about prostitution. Similarly, if the average person is
ill equipped to gauge risks and bear the consequences of poor risk management,
then the calculus applies in sex (STIs, pregnancy, rape, etc.) and in organ
donation.

Though the most interesting organ-based financial instruments would be rights
to harvest organs post mortem, which several people in this thread seem to be
overlooking.

And no matter how intellectually satisfying it would be if it were true, I
don't think Western culture (or psychology in general) agrees with you that
sex is just another service like computer repair. We don't have special
categories of crimes for forced computer repair at gunpoint for instance. And
we don't shame and fire overbearing bosses for pressuring employees into
illicit computer repair.

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gumby
Apropos the US body market: there's a cartel that controls who gets body parts
for research; life science startups find it tough to get human tissue for
physiological research as the big companies and big research institutes end up
with priority access.

It's a strange omission as all the other resources (vivaria, lab equipment,
chemicals, APIs etc are easily purchasable).

~~~
tartoran
True, I read an article about it a while back. Things are still the same

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perfunctory
> Although the declared value of the head on the customs form was $25, the
> going rate for a human head in the U.S. market is currently around $500,
> Reuters found

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ryanlol
So how does one actually buy a head? I need one for instagram.

~~~
pizzazzaro
Im sure you can contact Medicure on some .onion website.

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ekianjo
One paragraph:

> From 2012 to 2016, according to manifest records reviewed by Reuters,
> MedCure shipped body parts valued at a total of more than $500,000 from the
> United States to the Netherlands. MedCure said it helps connect donors and
> scientific, research and medical entities. "We are an accredited and
> regulated institution and adhere to the best-in-class industry standards for
> safety ethics, and transparency," the company said in a statement to
> Reuters.

Followed by:

> Freek Dikkers, the professor of ear, nose and throat medicine at the AMC
> whose department bought the heads, said it was stopping after learning that
> the company solicits donors at hospices and old age homes and that its
> former owners earned millions from the trade. Dikkers said that was
> “unacceptable.”

Something does not add up. How can you be a champion of "transparency" while
your clients ignore (or pretend to ignore?) how you source the parts?

~~~
viraptor
Matching a transparency standard doesn't mean you're transparent. It means you
successfully ticked boxes that should provide incentives for transparency.

~~~
roel_v
It's sad you're being downvoted, since your comment explain exactly what is
going on.

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ekianjo
> many brokers offer donor families free cremation in return for donating a
> body

Wait, what do they cremate then if they get to keep the body??

~~~
Fnoord
The body gets "scavenged", and then it gets cremated. The ash people get in an
urn or necklace is very, very little amount of the total amount of ash.

I carry a donor, and I want to be cremated as well (since I find it pathetic
to use land after I passed away). If I die, I want whoever is left on Earth to
benefit from my legacy. Mainly my family, but also others who are in need. I'd
only be grateful if someone else would do the same for me if they'd pass away.

This is why I support the modernisation that being a donor is opt-out in 2019
instead of opt-in (in NL).

As far as I'm concerned, those who are donor get priority over those who are
not donor, to avoid leeches (akin to people who don't vaccinate who benefit
from those who do).

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kwhitefoot
> since I find it pathetic to use land after I passed away

You aen't using it up. You, or your heirs, etc., just rent the plot for a
while. Where I live every resident is entitled to a plot in the local
churchyard for twenty years, if you, or your family, want more then you pay a
fee for more years. The town has been in existence for at least two hundred
years yet the size of the graveyard increases only as the population
increases. My wife's ashes were buried there last year and there is room on
the gravestone for my name and that of my children if they want it so it could
be occupied for another hundred years. However, it is more likely that twenty
years after my death the plot will be reused by another family.

This occupies about one square metre. The house I live in occupies about 900
square metres of land so I don't think my wife's ashes are occupying a
disproportionate amount of space.

Don't take this as criticism, just another point of view.

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extra88
In the US, burial plots being for a single individual _forever_ is the norm.
Cemeteries basically build up a fund to pay for maintenance in perpetuity.
What you describe is more the norm in Europe, I don’t know about elsewhere.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/04/17/603360426/how-...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/04/17/603360426/how-
american-cemeteries-promise-to-keep-your-grave-forever)

------
Someone
For details on US body brokers, read
[https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-
bodi...](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodies-
brokers/)

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everybodyknows
>Although the declared value of the head on the customs form was $25, the
going rate for a human head in the U.S. market is currently around $500

Occam's razor explanation for this would be the harvesting of a little extra
profit, by defrauding the customs tax system.

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Rainymood
>The hospitals told Reuters in recent weeks they made their decisions on
ethical grounds. The move comes amid investigations by U.S. law enforcement
into some so-called body brokers - companies that obtain the dead, often
through donation, dissect them and sell the parts for profit.

Is this what peak capitalism looks like?

~~~
aylmao
What really gets me is the “for profit”, especially since these are organ
donors.

They get their “merchandise” for free from the last goodwill of people. If
not, apparently they’ll offer free cremation to families to convince them to
agree to donating the organs— since they have to dispose of the corpse anyway
this is probably just an expense they’d have to pay regardless.

And then they sell this donation for profit. This is baffling.

~~~
freeflight
Which isn't that different to how many "charitable" organizations are actually
for-profit organizations.

Another example of this would be clothing donations. Most people donate
clothing with the expectation that it will be given to the needy for free.
When in reality, these second-hand clothes will usually be sold to traders who
then retail them in developing countries [0], undercutting the domestic
competition who can't compete with the massive influx of "free" clothing.

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/sustainable...](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
business/sustainable-fashion-blog/2015/feb/13/second-hand-clothes-charity-
donations-africa)

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readhn
How about some rabbis trafficking body parts?

[https://slate.com/human-interest/2009/07/the-arrests-of-
rabb...](https://slate.com/human-interest/2009/07/the-arrests-of-rabbis-who-
trafficked-body-parts-uncover-more-complicated-issues.html)

"three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis were among
more than 40 people arrested in New Jersey"

Mayor Peter J. Cammarano III of Hoboken, Mayor Dennis Elwell of Secaucus, both
Democrats; Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith of Jersey City, also a Democrat; and
Assemblyman Daniel M. Van Pelt, a Republican from Ocean County.

