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Year: 2012 / DURATION: 52 MINS / DIRECTORs: WOLFGANG LUCK AND MARTINA KELLER / PRODUCTION: A&O BUERO / VERSIONS AVAILABLE: ENGLISH, FRENCH, GERMAN
Previous broadcasts include NDR, WDR, YLE, Al Jazeera, VRT, TVI, 24 Doc, TVP2, ABC Aus, Ayat Media, Red Pix, TV4, France O, TVP1, DR and EO
Nominated for the Prix Europa 2012.
Available in HD
In the Ukraine, an upper arm costs 42.90 EUR. In one year alone, over a thousand legs were amputated from corpses in Kiev. From a medical point of view, nearly every bit of a dead body is reusable. Body parts can save lives. But most of the time they are sold for profit and used for dubious cosmetic procedures.
Human tissue is big business. In the USA, the shares of professional corpse dealers are traded on the stock market. However, the raw material is in short supply. In Europe and the US, relatives of the dead are reluctant to donate the bodies of their loved ones. Therefore companies import their raw materials from poorer countries, often without the knowledge or permission the relatives.
Sometimes companies commit criminal acts to procure tissue. The US company Biomedical Tissue Services purchased corpses illegally from morgues. Then they amputated the legs under unsanitary conditions and sold the bones and tendons at a profit. Transplants manufactured from these raw materials pose a threat to the health of patients.
This film investigates the criminal activities of the body part dealers.
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