BODY WORLDS Response to Darren Garnick's, 'Where are the Protestors at 'Body Worlds?'
August 24 2006 - 09:00AM
PR Newswire (US)
(Boston Herald, 'Working Stiff,' August 16) HEIDELBERG, Germany,
Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Darren Garnick's column, "Where are the
protestors at 'Body Worlds?" (Working Stiff, Boston Herald, Aug.
16) is full of outrage and vitriol. However, even a small injection
of facts, context, and perspective would have rescued it from the
domain of blather. Garnick writes, "Von Hagens' factory in Dalian,
China's third largest port, reportedly employs 260 medical school
grads to work the "Body Worlds" assembly line. Factory workers get
$200-$400 a month to peel skin, scrape fat off muscle and replace
bodily fluids with soft plastic. Based on a presumed 40-hour work
week, that comes to $1.25 to $2.50 an hour ..." According to the
Dalian China Authority (http://www.dl.gov.cn/) and The China Daily
(http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/), the average annual salary for
white collar workers in Dalian, China is 39,889 yuan (US$4,986).
People in the financial sector, the highest paid group among all
local white-collar workers in Dalian, earn an average 73,024 yuan
(US$9,128). In addition to base salaries ranging from 28,737 yuan
(US$3,600) to 57,475 yuan (US$7,200), the employees at Dr. Von
Hagens plastination laboratory can participate in a full package of
benefits including subsidized rental housing or assistance with
home ownership, subsidized meals, and full insurance coverage. The
salaries, though low by American standards, exceed salaries for
similarly employed Dalian workers and compare favorably with
salaries in the financial sector. Apropos of nothing to do with
Body Worlds or Dr. Von Hagens, Garnick writes, "The Times raises
the question of whether Von Hagens' former factory manager may have
used "unclaimed bodies" from the morgue when he first set up shop
in 1999." "Former" is the operative word in the quote, and it has
already been widely reported that the individual in question signed
a lucrative deal to provide unclaimed and found bodies to
Atlanta-based publicly traded company, Premier Exhibitions. As for
Body Worlds, with the exception of a few dissected small specimens
acquired from established morphological and anatomical programs,
and fetuses which came from historical museum collections
pre-dating 1940, all the plastinated specimens in our exhibitions
originate from a body donation program founded in 1982 by Dr. Von
Hagens, and managed by the Institute for Plastination in
Heidelberg, Germany since 1993. Garnick is not the first reporter
to take issue with the anonymity of the donors. "We're not told if
the face ... staring at us was once a shipbuilder in Gdansk, a
dissident college professor in Shanghai or a little old lady from
Pasadena," he writes. However, the Institute for Plastination is
bound by the code of medical confidentiality, and acutely sensitive
to the fact that the donors willed only their post-mortal bodies
for the education of many -- not their personal lives, case
histories, or any other aspect of their earthly lives. Garnick's
implication that it is wrong for anatomist, Dr. Gunther Von Hagens
(a "mad scientist," in his view) to focus on anatomy and public
health education, instead of say, turning Body Worlds into a
belated public funeral service or reality show where people can
"wrestle with emotional, moral issues," as he suggests, is not
merely anti-science, but asinine. Garnick may passionately believe
that two plus two equals rhinoceros, however, we are confident that
the people of Boston, whom Garnick shows contempt for -- "Ms. Davis
Square Hippie Chick with the 'Bread Not Bombs' pin on your backpack
and the Che Guevara earrings," "Mr. Surly Harvard Square Coffee
Shop Guy with the 'Rage Against the Machine' T-shirt," and "Mr.
Newton City Alderman with the 'Save Darfur' sticker on your Volvo
SUV," -- are discerning enough not to draw all the wrong
conclusions from anecdotal, false, and irrelevant information. Gail
Vida Hamburg Director of Communications Institute for Plastination
Heidelberg, Germany Communications Director (USA) for Gunther von
Hagens' BODY WORLDS DATASOURCE: Body Worlds CONTACT: Gail Vida
Hamburg for Body Worlds, +1-312-602-5369, Web site:
http://www.bodyworlds.com/
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