Exhibit Vows to Stop Using Chinese Bodies
The “Bodies World” exhibit, the more reputable of two leading museum exhibits using cadavers to show the inside of the human body, pledges to stop using bodies from China. Dr. Gunther von Hagens told 20/20 tonight that he found that some of the bodies used for the exhibit had injuries consistent with execution. And surprise surprise, these bodies came from China.
So when you look at the plastinated bodies, preserved using modern techniques that allow real bodies to be frozen in life-like poses, like shooting a basketball, riding a horse, or as featured in the movie Casino Royale, playing poker, there’s a chance you’re looking at a murdered Chinese dissident. As the exhibit has become an extreme success — 20 million people have seen one of the body exhibits — scientists as well as religious activists have begun to protest how Premier Exhibitions, the Atlanta-based company that provides the bodies for less reputable, rival exhibition “Bodies: The Exhibition”, obtains the cadavers. 20/20 traced the bodies to a medical lab/shady warehouse in Dalian in North China, where bodies of murdered political prisoners and executed criminals were purchased for $200-$300 dollars and then sold to “Bodies: The Exhibition.”
An admitted body snatcher in Dalian, who took the photo above, told 20/20 that he worked in the body black market and sold bodies to the warehouse in Dalian that then supplied the bodies to the American exhibits. If you look closely, the people in these photos are wearing sneakers. While von Hagens vowed never to use China-supplied cadavers for “Bodies World,” and only bodies of those who agreed to donate their bodies before death. Premier Exhibitions has not followed suit. While I haven’t seen the exhibit, the story today sheds some light on China’s body market, and illustrates that even though we’re talking about bodies of real people with real lives and real families, even in death, there’s still money to be made.