THE market in body tissue in the US is believed to be worth more than $500 million (£288 million) a year.

While most people know about organ transplants, tissue is now much more widely used. Transplanted organs are governed by well-established laws. There is little evidence — in the developed world, at least — of trading in such organs. But the same does not necessarily apply to body parts that can be recovered from mortuaries, or from bodies donated for research.

Bones can be used in fracture repair, skin can aid wound healing, and heart valves can be used in other patients. Tendons and ligaments may be used to treat sports injuries, long bones to replace those damaged by cancer, shaped-bone products for spinal surgery, and ground bone in dental surgery. Collagen can be used to plump up lips. Bodies, or parts of bodies, can be used in crash tests, or in demonstrations of new techniques for surgeons.

Heart valves are said to fetch up to $7,000 each in the US, and skin $1,000 per square foot. A body could be worth about $150,000, according to Art Caplan, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

There are two legitimate sources of body parts in the US. The vast majority of bodies donated to science go to medical schools, where they are used to teach anatomy. Surplus parts can be sent to not-for-proft biomedical corporations, and it is illegal to charge for them. But medical schools can charge fees to cover administrative and other costs, and these can be high.

In some cases people in charge of willed-body programmes have profited illegally. In 2002 Allen Tyler, the head of the cadaver programme at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, pleaded guilty to 66 counts of illegal mutilation. It is estimated that he sold parts from 133 bodies, earning $465,000. He was sentenced to 20 years in jail.

A second source is the tissue and organ banks, non-profit organisations to whom individuals can leave their bodies. They are often linked to trading companies to whom they pass on the parts.

Funeral homes may trade illegally in body parts. There is no evidence that such trading has taken place in Britain.

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