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A few months ago, police in New York City announced that they had shut down a ring of body snatchers. The police alleged that criminals had been secretly using corpses bound for the cemetery or cremation, and removing bones, skin, tendons and veins for sale in a booming business of body parts. Many of the body parts were aged and riddled with disease. Possibly tainted tissues were implanted in people with dental problems, back pain, and burns. As many as ten thousand North Americans, maybe more, could be affected.
How could this happen in a sector of the medical industry that we assume to be tightly regulated? We asked Bob Carty to find out.
He found an industry that for many years, has been in fact lightly regulated. And he found the stories of two women - a daughter of one of the defiled corpses, and a Canadian recipient of such body parts - who have found themselves strangely connected in a macabre nightmare.
Body Bazaar was produced by Bob Carty of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It airs as part of the international documentary exchange series, Crossing Boundaries.
Links:
Body Parts For Sale
Surgeon charged with body smuggling
A news article on Michael Mastromarino and his ilegal medical practices with corpses.
Books:
 Body Brokers: Inside America's Underground Trade in Human Remains
by: Annie Cheney 2007
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