(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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