THE NEW ZEALAND MEDICAL JOURNAL

In February 2002, it was revealed publicly that up until as late as 1996, Green Lane Hospital in Auckland had been retaining children’s hearts following postmortem examinations without parental consent, or indeed knowledge. Similar practices have been uncovered in the United Kingdom and Australia, leading to public inquiries. At both the Bristol Royal Infirmary and the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool children’s organs were removed at postmortem and retained without parental consent.1,2 At the Institute of Forensic Medicine in New South Wales, the situation was similar but in this case, long bones and joints were removed from adult cadavers, once again with lack of consent from next-of-kin.3 In all of the above cases, the rationale behind the retention of organs and tissues was research and teaching. A variety of scandals have also come to light in the United States, involving anatomy departments, tissue banks, nonprofit and for-profit private biotechnology companies4,5 and more recently, crematoria.6 Medical schools have become embroiled in some of these situations.7 While commercial pressures skew some of these American cases, the underlying drive remains the centrality of human tissue for research, therapy an