- http://www.icij.org/tissue
- http://www.icij.org/human-corpses-are-prize-global-drive-profits
- http://www.icij.org/tissue/video-skin-and-bone
- http://www.icij.org/tissue/how-safe-human-tissue
Provide names of other journalists involved.
Kate Willson, Gerard Ryle, Mike Hudson, Kimberley Porteous, David Donald and Marina Walker Guevara, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (USA) Vlad Lavrov, The Kiev Post (Ukraine) Martina Keller, freelance (Germany) Thomas Maier, Newsday and News12 Long Island (USA) Sandra Bartlett, Joe Shapiro and Susanne Reber, National Public Radio (USA) Mar Cabra, freelance (Spain) William Venuti and Antonio Aldo Palaleo, The Daily Slovakia (Slovakia) La Voce della Repubblica Ceca (Czech Rep.) Alexenia Dimitrova, 24 Chasa (Bulgaria) Nari Kim, Channel A (South Korea)
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
The eight-month, four-part investigative series ran July 17-19th. Follow up stories continued throughout 2012.
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
On Feb. 24, 2012, Ukrainian authorities made an alarming discovery: bones and other human tissues crammed into coolers in a grimy white minibus. So began an 11-country detective story involving stolen corpses, wads of cash and good intentions that are sometimes in conflict with the rush to make money. The series documented how tissues taken from corpses in poor countries are used to make advanced medical and dental products for rich countries, fueling a Wall Street-bankrolled industry that has transformed what was once a non-profit system into a for-profit business. This story was not about well-regulated transplant organs but about tendons taken from corpses to repair injured knees, putty made of cadaver bone to restore teeth, skin from the dead used to replace breasts after cancer or to augment lips and penises through cosmetic surgery. The series exposed an ineffective regulatory system that does little to police the trafficking and processing of the material. The dead are, in effect, traded like pork bellies in a largely unregulated international market. US authorities admitted they are not always aware of where tissues come from or where they go. An ICIJ analysis revealed that over the past decade 1,352 infections and 40 deaths followed tissue transplants in the U.S. The global nature of the industry makes it easy to move products with little scrutiny — and a lack of proper tracking means that by the time infections are discovered, many manufactured goods can’t be found and recalled. As one top doctor put it: “We are more careful with fruit and vegetables than with body parts.” Columbia Journalism Review called the revelations “unnerving,” adding: “This is an eye-opening and fascinating series that shows capitalism at its most remorseless and amoral.” In presenting ICIJ its August investigative reporting award, the Sidney Hillman Foundation praised the project for tackling a “multifaceted issue with great rigor and great compassion.”
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
Our team filed more than 200 separate requests for records for FDA inspection reports, investigation files, and hospital purchase orders. Using Freedom of Information laws, reporters sought information and data from the FDA, state health agencies and public hospitals about the trade and safety of human tissue products. We received purchase orders from hospitals and state health department records showing Ukraine tissue being offered to buyers in New York — in spite of Ukraine officials saying no tissue was exported from their country. The FDA initially refused to provide an electronic copy of recalls data, claiming the information was already published on its website. We filed for reconsideration because the data was behind a form query page. In order to analyze the data, we would be required to click on each individual link, then copy and paste the data into a spreadsheet. Another problem arose when analyzing the core dataset of registered tissue establishments — needed to track the flow of body parts from abroad into the United States. When we joined the table on inspection data we discovered about a third of establishments didn’t appear in the registration data. We had to go back to the FDA and show them why we believed data was missing, and request a new dataset. Eventually the FDA agreed with our analysis of their faulty methods and complied with our request by providing the missing data. We read through Security and Exchange Commission filings for publicly traded companies that operated tissue banks that revealed their financial dependence on a steady flow of dead bodies to stay in business. We also examined Internal Revenue Service 990 annual filings for tax-exempt nonprofit tissue banks to learn the salaries of top officers. We read key reports about the tissue banking industry produced by medical journals, the European Union, the U.S. Congress, the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services. Reporters tried for months to get on-the-record comment from this industry and from watchdogs like the FDA. But offers for on-the-record interviews were rescinded, rebuffed or ignored. We were even less successful trying to obtain information in other countries using Freedom of Information laws. The German authorities were minimal in their responses and Bulgarian authorities declined repeated requests for information.
Explain types of human sources used.
ICIJ’s small Washington staff marshaled far-flung resources — from national, international and regional news organizations to data companies like Palantir, Prescient and Google — to produce a package of newspaper, radio, TV and online stories that appeared in hundreds of outlets in multiple languages around the world. We visited Ukrainian parents whose deceased loved ones were allegedly sold off by their own government. We tracked clinics in South Korea advertising new noses, chins and other cosmetic enhancements made from imported cadaver parts. A reporter slept in a Brussels hospital bed for a week to secure video of a corpse being skinned. We frequented a New York jail to talk to a convicted body snatcher, and then interviewed people who got products derived from tissues he’d obtained unscrupulously. In all, our team conducted more than 200 interviews and reviewed court documents, regulatory reports, criminal findings, data obtained under FOI laws in multiple jurisdictions, corporate records and leaked internal company memos. We overcame legal, language, cultural, and ethical barriers and faced difficult and sometimes uncomfortable situations, especially in nations like Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, where information is frequently difficult to obtain.
Results:
This series led to Congressional and Pentagon investigations, a Pentagon policy change, promised action by Interpol, warnings by The Lancet, the world’s leading medical journal, and the voluntary suspension of tissue imports from Ukraine into the U.S. The actual and potential impact was both immediate and on-going: * The Pentagon announced a new program to better oversee human cadaver tissue used in U.S. Defense Department hospitals. It is also investigating allegations that some tissue-based medical implants provided to service members may have been obtained improperly. * Congress announced an investigation into government contracts between the Department of Veterans Affairs and Florida-based RTI Biologics, the world’s biggest for-profit manufacturer of medical implants made from human bones, skin, ligaments and other tissues. * RTI voluntarily suspended imports of human tissue into the U.S. from Ukraine and suspended its relationship with BioImplant, an arm of the Ukrainian government. * In the months after the initial series ran, five morgue workers were charged in Ukraine, adding to an existing and growing list of arrests of morgue officials in that country. If convicted, the latest suspects each face seven years jail. * Interpol’s Secretary General Ron Noble announced he would visit Ukraine to determine whether a broader, global investigation is required. * After the series ran, German authorities launched an investigation into tissues imported there involving the German subsidiary of RTI and BioImplant.. * The series was raised at a World Health Organization subcommittee meeting in France. WHO has longstanding plans to create a coding system to track human tissue traded for transplants and ingredients in drugs to secure safety and prevent illegal collection. It intends to introduce the system in 193 countries. * In November, The Lancet responded to the series in a two-page follow-up article outlining the dangers in the human tissue trade. It warned: “profiteering threatens the altruism of tissue donation”. ICIJ and its reporting partners continue to follow developments and investigate new angles of the story.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
We have not received any request for correction or clarification, nor has anyone challenged the accuracy of our reporting.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
We worked on a shoestring budget and so can others with enough cooperation. Our virtual newsroom communicated by phone and email. We met over Skype, shared documents through an online file-sharing system called Box.net, and exchanged ideas and updates on a project-specific listserv. We were selective about what records requests we chose to obtain if they required payment. And the most painful part was limiting our travel. When we did travel, it was barebones. For instance, a military hospital in Brussels allowed us to film a donor tissue recovery. But we had to be on standby, ready to arrive at the hospital just in time. We didn’t have the budget for a hotel. So the hospital offered our reporter Mar Cabra, who is normally based in Madrid, a bed in the burns unit. She slept there for a week. Our diverse multinational team from several nations was united in our common commitment to journalism’s highest ideals of investigative reporting. We wanted to present this vital, unexplored international story as a public service to millions of readers, listeners and viewers around the world.