City to give names of corpses

The city this week will disclose the names of 24 corpses whose brains were allegedly stolen for research at the University in the latest stage of a class-action lawsuit filed against the city's Medical Examiner, the University and Medical School Anatomy Professor Alan Rosenquist. According to Dennis Abrams, counsel for the plaintiff, a status conference held in court last Monday with Common Pleas Court Judge Charles Mirarchi determined that the city would disclose the information within 10 days. The conference had been postponed several times, Abrams said. The suit was originally filed last summer by Emmeline Buell, on behalf of her murdered 23-year-old son Emanuel Johnson. Buell said her son's body was taken to the office of city Medical Examiner Haresh Mirchandani, where his brain was taken out without the family's consent, wrapped in chemical preservatives and shipped to the University for dissection in Rosenquist's classes. Mirchandani's office has claimed that the brain was sent to the University to investigate the cause of death. But Abrams uncovered documents that show that this brain was found to have no "gross pathology" which may have contributed to the cause of death. Mirchandani "had no grounds for believing that the condition of [Johnson's] brain in any way caused or contributed to [Johnson's] death," because the cause of death was found to be multiple gunshot wounds to Johnson's torso, the complaint says. The records also indicate that between December 1990 and May 1991, 25 brains were sent from the medical examiner's office to the University's Medical School and that all of the brains except one were found to be normal. "We filed [the suit] originally on behalf of Mrs. Buell as a representative parent or relative of one of the 25," Abrams said. However, Abrams said that since the public became aware of the litigation through an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer, he has received several calls from people who believe that their relatives were also unwitting donors. Abrams contends that he needs all the names to further pursue the suit. "There's a significant amount of discovery that needs to be done," Abrams said. The complaint contends that Mirchandani, Rosenquist and the University acted "beyond the scope of their authority" in the transferral of the brains. This transferral is the point of contention in the suit. Although the Medical School has acknowledged receiving the brain samples, lawyers representing the University have said the school was acting under the assumption that the transfer had been authorized. In addition, the University contends that the school received the brains in order to determine the role of the brain in cause of death, and that the brains were not dissected in Rosenquist's classes. The University's outside counsel William Jantsen refused to comment extensively, and said the case is currently under review. Rosenquist could not be reached for comment.