Parts is Parts, or, Is That Liver Kosher?

[Darth Rotor]

Some bits from an AP story, with philological insights to set the story up:
ghoul, from Arabic. ghul, an evil spirit that robs graves and feeds on corpses, from ghala "he seized."
JERUSALEM - Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.
Seems a bit rude to me.
The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel's Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs.
We note the Swedish spin, and wonder if Arcade 22 wrote that story.
Hiss said, "We started to harvest corneas ... Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family."
Mea culpa arrives.
... specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.
So it wasn't just Palestinians. Hiss and his friends were equal opportunity body recyclers.
"This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer," the military said in a statement quoted by Channel 2.
{... in 2004} Hiss was dismissed as head of the forensic institute because of irregularities over use of organs there. Israel's attorney general dropped criminal charges against him, and Hiss still works as chief pathologist at the institute.
Doubtless some folks are not happy with this level of accountability?
He said in the interview that the practice of harvesting organs without permission began in the "early 1990s." However, he also said that military surgeons removed a thin layer of skin from bodies as early as 1987 to treat burn victims. Hiss said he believed that was done with family consent. The harvesting ended in 2000, he said.
"I believe it was done with family consent." If you are in charge, part of your job is to put policies and procedures into place so that you aren't guessing about things like this. Simple things like checklists, sign offs, records of phone calls, family permission, etc.
Complaints ... came from relatives of Israeli soldiers and civilians as well as Palestinians. The bodies belonged to people who died from various causes, including diseases, accidents and Israeli-Palestinian violence
Equal opportunity vivisection ...
there has been no evidence to back up the claim in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians for their organs. Angry Israeli officials called the report "anti-Semitic."
Gee, there's a shock.

For the over fifty crowd: is this doctor related to Alger Hiss, one of Richard Nixon's least favorite Americans? :confused:

[ddt]

This AP report gives an interesting perspective on the Aftonbladet story which was discussed in this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=151699).

[popscythe]

Vivisection is when you dissect something that is alive.

That being said, far better they be doing it on corpses than *actually* vivisecting people.

[Darth Rotor]

This AP report gives an interesting perspective on the Aftonbladet story which was discussed in this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=151699).
I knew I'd heard of this matter somewhere before, but I could not recall where. Thanks, my memory is obviously starting to leak.

DR

[ddt]

I knew I'd heard of this matter somewhere before, but I could not recall where. Thanks, my memory is obviously starting to leak.

DR

You're welcome. One of the things that was raised in that thread is that organ theft was very unlikely or impossible because an organ doesn't survive more than half an hour outside the human body. Most people think with organ transplants about livers, kidneys. The AP story specifically mentions corneas. Do they survive longer? Or is it that Dr. Hiss just took the first corpse that was rolled into his office? (he was, after all, an equal-opportunity organ thief).

[Darth Rotor]

You're welcome. One of the things that was raised in that thread is that organ theft was very unlikely or impossible because an organ doesn't survive more than half an hour outside the human body. Most people think with organ transplants about livers, kidneys. The AP story specifically mentions corneas. Do they survive longer? Or is it that Dr. Hiss just took the first corpse that was rolled into his office? (he was, after all, an equal-opportunity organ thief).
I tossed out Liver, for humorous impact, the article mentioned skin and corneas specifically.

[ddt]

I tossed out Liver, for humorous impact, the article mentioned skin and corneas specifically.

I understand that. BTW, here's a link (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h6I8H32kJbxHmG__nQrcVSOcRmUQD9CN62LO2) to the article. ;)

But I meant, rereading bits of the old thread, to ask whether corneas can be preserved longer outside the human body than, say, livers. One of the arguments in the old thread why organ theft is impossible/very unlikely, was that organs can only be preserved for 30 minutes or so.

The AP article doesn't specifically say the organs were harvested for transplants, but I can't imagine another use for it - unless Dr. Hiss collected corneas like another collects stamps.

Gotta love this attempt at damage control:
While insisting that all organ harvesting was done with permission, Israel's Health Ministry told Channel 2, "The guidelines at that time were not clear."

So what is it? If it was done with permission, it would be fine anyway, and there were no need for unclarity in the guidelines.

[Peephole]

From the other thread (there's probably loads of this):
I can't believe that there are individuals on here (who claim to be "Humans" no less) that are defending this vile piece of filth that is being passed off as "Journalism."

Disgusting and shameful.

It's clear this despicable abortion of civility and reason was written to incite more unwarranted hatred of Israel and Jews. Guess what? It worked! (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=153984)

Congratulations, you loathsome monsters.
http://users.telenet.be/peephole/emoticons/emot-ughh.gif

[Darth Rotor]

From the other thread (there's probably loads of this):

http://users.telenet.be/peephole/emoticons/emot-ughh.gif

You seem to overlook the wording in the Swedish piece: it asserts that the reason Pals were killed was for the express purpose of organ harvesting, whereas the actual fact seems to have been organ harvesting of opportunity with whatever corpse, be it Israeli or Pal, showed up.

Unethical, certainly, but not quite what the article in Swedish paper alleged.

DR

[ddt]

You seem to overlook the wording in the Swedish piece: it asserts that the reason Pals were killed was for the express purpose of organ harvesting, whereas the actual fact seems to have been organ harvesting of opportunity with whatever corpse, be it Israeli or Pal, showed up.

Unethical, certainly, but not quite what the article in Swedish paper alleged.

Absolutely. The Swedish article had two false claims, or "questions", viz.
1) that only Palestinians would be targeted;
2) that the organs were used for transplantation. The end of the other thread contains a number of links to articles about Hiss from the 2000-2004 timeline. Those make clear he sold the organs for research use and for practice use by students.

It's also funny to see people in the start of the other thread discussing the possibility of a rogue pathologist and dismissing it. :) Hindsight is 20/20?