Don't Send Your Loved One's Remains to the Southland

As if we didn't have enough to worry about already (sex offenders in Cupertino trying to hit on you, insane criminal clowns), UC officials have admitted that they have been less than diligent in keeping track of donated cadavers. That's right - your dear Aunt Millie, who thought she was donating her body to science, may well have ended up on the black market in Nevada.  In 1999, the director of UC Irvine's body donation program was fired after allegations that he was selling spines to a Phoenix hospital.  We here at SFist will refrain from making a comment about the (har!) spine-chilling nature of this crime, but wonder: um, what exactly do you do with a pile of spines?  For those of you considering vegetarianism:  "There's more regulations that cover a shipment of oranges coming into California than there is a shipment of human knees that are going from a body parts broker in one state to Las Vegas," said Dr. Todd Olson, director of anatomical donations at Albert Einstein Medical School of New York.

SFist Connie, contributing.