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http://www.spiegel.de/international/...645375,00.html
The German company Tutogen's business in body parts is as secretive as it is lucrative. It extracts bones from corpses in Ukraine to manufacture medical products, as part of a global market worth billions that is centered in the United States.
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The market for tissue products is still small in Germany. When it comes to bones, for example, experts estimate that only about 30,000 transplants a year are used in hospitals nationwide, mainly for use in bone reconstruction for hip surgery and in spinal column surgery.
It's a completely different story in the United States. According to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, more than a million bone parts are used in transplants every year. In no other country is it possible to make so much money with body parts. If a body were disassembled into its individual parts, then processed and sold, the total proceeds could amount to $250,000 (€176,000). For a single corpse! The US tissue industry generates total revenues of about $1 billion a year, says journalist Martina Keller, a co-author of this article and the author of the German book, "Cannibalized: The Human Corpse as a Resource."
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According to an internal planning document dated June 17, 2002 (the file is titled "Raw Tissue Requirements"), Tutogen needed the following parts for the coming fiscal year:
* 2,920 shafts of the femur,
* 3,000 iliac crests,
* 1,190 patellar tendons,
* 3,750 kneecaps,
* 10,200 femoral muscle fascia (or fascia lata),
* 50 cranial bones,
* 70 Achilles tendons.
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At times, much larger numbers of body parts from Ukraine and other countries were arriving in Neunkirchen than Tutogen could even process. A document titled "Inventory, Raw Material Storage 1," dated March 2000, reveals the scope of this excess material. According to this inventory document, Tutogen warehouses already contained 688 patellar tendons, 1,831 kneecaps, 1,848 fibula, 2,114 fascia and 1,196 foot bones, or a total of more than 20,000 body parts.
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According to a document dated June 2002, which lists the "Raw Tissue Requirements for USA Needs," the US partners required the following monthly supply:
* 119 iliac crests,
* 667 pieces of fascia lata,
* 267 kneecaps,
* 243 shafts of the femur.
...
The market for tissue products is still small in Germany. When it comes to bones, for example, experts estimate that only about 30,000 transplants a year are used in hospitals nationwide, mainly for use in bone reconstruction for hip surgery and in spinal column surgery.
It's a completely different story in the United States. According to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, more than a million bone parts are used in transplants every year. In no other country is it possible to make so much money with body parts. If a body were disassembled into its individual parts, then processed and sold, the total proceeds could amount to $250,000 (€176,000). For a single corpse! The US tissue industry generates total revenues of about $1 billion a year, says journalist Martina Keller, a co-author of this article and the author of the German book, "Cannibalized: The Human Corpse as a Resource."
...
According to an internal planning document dated June 17, 2002 (the file is titled "Raw Tissue Requirements"), Tutogen needed the following parts for the coming fiscal year:
* 2,920 shafts of the femur,
* 3,000 iliac crests,
* 1,190 patellar tendons,
* 3,750 kneecaps,
* 10,200 femoral muscle fascia (or fascia lata),
* 50 cranial bones,
* 70 Achilles tendons.
...
At times, much larger numbers of body parts from Ukraine and other countries were arriving in Neunkirchen than Tutogen could even process. A document titled "Inventory, Raw Material Storage 1," dated March 2000, reveals the scope of this excess material. According to this inventory document, Tutogen warehouses already contained 688 patellar tendons, 1,831 kneecaps, 1,848 fibula, 2,114 fascia and 1,196 foot bones, or a total of more than 20,000 body parts.
...
According to a document dated June 2002, which lists the "Raw Tissue Requirements for USA Needs," the US partners required the following monthly supply:
* 119 iliac crests,
* 667 pieces of fascia lata,
* 267 kneecaps,
* 243 shafts of the femur.
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