It's honestly common.
I've seen a couple news stories over the years about it. Basically "donating to science" means it can be used for damn near anything, not just what the person wants.
Sometimes this is because the part responsible for the death isn't able to be studied, sometimes because they already have enough bodies at the moment, and sometimes companies just want that 5k from the military to see what damage weapons do to a human body.
I’m fine having my body donated to a science institution to do Learning with. But if it’s going to be sold on, I want in on that! Or at least, my family should be fairly compensated. I’m donating to scientific advancement, not so someone else can make a profit!
You think that's bad?
When you give blood it's sold for $300 a pint to medical providers...
When the person receives that pint, they're charged between 1k to almost 4k for it.
People need to give blood, but because of our for profit healthcare system, there are giant road blocks and expenses as it goes thru each "middle man".
I used to give all the time, but the local "donation centers" all started cutting expenses and the last three times I gave they fucked it up because new staff weren't getting trained correctly.
It's the morally right thing to do to donate, but it enriches terrible people and perpetuates a horrible system.
I used to work in blood diagnostics. At the time each test from a kit was pennies to make but the labs would buy it for dollars who would charge doctors tens of dollars who would charge patients hundreds of dollars. These are automated systems btw so your sample is centrifuged and then put in a rack and the system does the rest (this happens at the lab, your doctor just labels and packages it and sends it out).
I’m a Brit and I’m fairly sure that’s not the case over here, but sadly that doesn’t surprise me at all about the American healthcare system…
This just came up at work. Long story short Red Cross kept failing to show up for blood drives, so work changed to a partnership with a heavily profit-driven and publicly amoral blood company.
A coworker pointed out that it is possible to donate directly at hospitals and bypass (at least some) of the middlemen. This is how I will donate from now on.