Harvard Medical School under fire for the trafficking of human body parts

Harvard Medical School, one of the most respected institutions in the country, now finds itself embroiled in controversy due to accusations that a staff member has trafficked human body parts.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Cedric Lodge previously worked as the morgue manager for Harvard Medical School. Part of Lodge’s job required that he oversee the “Anatomical Gifts Program,” which he reportedly used to obtain organs and other body parts. He and his wife, Denise, then allegedly sold them to a “nationwide network,” though only four other people have currently been charged.

How the scheme worked

Some people opt to have their bodies donated to medical science, allowing medical students to study them and practice medical procedures; afterwards, those remains are supposed to be cremated and have the ashes returned to their families, or have the bodies buried in Harvard’s medical cemetery.

Instead, Lodge allegedly saw an opportunity to make a profit.

WARNING: Screenshots below may be disturbing to some people.

Two people, Katrina Maclean and Joshua Taylor, were reportedly allowed to enter the morgue, examine the bodies for themselves, and decide which ones they wanted to buy. Afterwards, they sold the bodies to other people for a profit.

Maclean is a Salem woman who owns a business called “Kat’s Creepy Creations,” which was raided in March. Some of the items she allegedly bought included dissected faces for $600, which she planned to tan into leather. Though her business claimed she specialized in upcycling regular dolls into horror-themed creations, authorities say she was also storing and selling human remains through her business.

Families affected by the case have since filed a class-action lawsuit against Harvard Medical School, even though the press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office called the medical school a victim as well. The families clearly disagree.

“Harvard and HMS owed a duty of care to the families of those who donated their bodies,” the filing reads. “Harvard and HMS breached its duty of care and was negligent when it failed to take reasonable steps in the hiring, training, supervision, and retention of defendant Cedric Lodge.”

Jeremy Pauley and preborn children

Another person facing charges from the U.S. Attorney’s Office is Jeremy Pauley, a heavily tattooed man who identifies himself as a “lead preservation specialist of retired medical specimens and curator to historic remains and artifacts.”

Another woman, Candace Chapman Scott, worked for a mortuary and crematorium in Little Rock, Arkansas; she stole body parts from bodies she was supposed to cremate, and sold them to Pauley. Though Pauley kept some of the remains he purchased, he also sold some for a profit, with Matthew Lampi named as a frequent partner.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office noted that Pauley and Lampi sold body parts back and forth over “an extended period of time,” and exchanged upwards of $100,000 in payments.

Pauley’s website raises many disturbing questions, as it contains numerous photos — virtually all of which appear to be babies, some of which were clearly not yet born when they died.

Different tabs showcase various aspects of his “business,” which he claims include preservation work, plastination, and the Memento Mori Museum. He also has a tab announcing his latest endeavor, The Pauley Institute of Preservation. Additionally, he said he “intends on founding a department dedicated to the tanning of human leather adorned with tattoos for the purposes of mourning the dearly departed.”

Yet virtually all of the photos on his website are not of adults, but of babies.

Screenshot from Pauley’s website.

Screenshot from Pauley’s website.

Pauley never makes it clear where he obtained these bodies from, or what caused their deaths. Yet some of them are clearly preborn children, who must have died through either miscarriage or abortion. One specimen appears to be a preborn child still inside his or her mother’s uterus.

Pauley’s girlfriend, Sophie Mae Vee, spoke out in his defense on Facebook. Mae Vee, a self-described “human blood artist,” thanked people for standing up for Pauley and his work.

“Jeremy’s devotion to unusual antiquities is as unconditional as his appearance is, which is unfortunate in a situation where clickbait is as far as media reaches,” she said. “We are both shocked by all the unfoldings this past year has unveiled and are glad justice is being brought to those that can no longer speak for themselves. We now more than ever encourage the respect and care be the sole subject of collecting, educating, and anyone’s efforts of restorative and reclamation purposes.”

She also claimed that they would continue to “defend education and proper respect of the deceased,” despite Pauley’s public displaying of the bodies of babies who could not give consent.

According to the Daily Mail, an anonymous tipster called police and said they found human organs and human skin in five-gallon buckets in Pauley’s basement. “Police also discovered two human brains, two lungs, a heart, two livers, and a skull with hair after obtaining a search warrant,” the Daily Mail reported. “Over a nine-month-period, Pauley allegedly paid Scott $10,975 for various body parts – including a heart, brains, liver, kidney, trachea, ears, ‘two fake boobies’, lungs, skin, a penis, testicles, a whole head and two fetus [sic].'”

Screenshot from Pauley’s website.

Screenshot from Pauley’s website.

Harvard, as an institution, has made clear its strong support for abortion. After Roe v. Wade was overturned in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, Harvard University Health Services released a statement saying abortion would remain available there.

An OB/GYN residency program affiliated with Harvard Medical School includes a “family planning” rotation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; their website includes a Family Planning Division which upholds their “commitment” to abortion and includes a Family Planning Fellowship which includes instruction in how to commit abortions. Harvard Medical School also partnered with Planned Parenthood to promote abortion (particularly to low-income and minority women) and train more OB/GYNs in how to commit the procedures.

There is no way to prove conclusively that the bodies Pauley is displaying are victims of abortion, but it is, at the very least, plausible. And as the Center for Medical Progress has shown, the abortion industry appears quite willing to sell the body parts of its victims for a profit.

“Some crimes defy understanding,” United States Attorney Gerard M. Karam said in a press release. “The theft and trafficking of human remains strikes at the very essence of what makes us human. It is particularly egregious that so many of the victims here volunteered to allow their remains to be used to educate medical professionals and advance the interests of science and healing. For them and their families to be taken advantage of in the name of profit is appalling.”

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