Oh, my. Legacy Health finds itself in a bit of a pickle, what with the FBI carrying on a criminal investigation into their supply of bodies.
The FBI is conducting a criminal investigation of a division of Legacy Health, looking into allegations that the Portland hospital system improperly obtained dead bodies for scientific research, didn’t keep full medical records on the cadavers, and may not have informed families that their relatives’ remains had been donated to science.
“I can confirm that we are looking into that particular body donation program at Legacy Research Institute,” says David Porter, a spokesman for the FBI’s Detroit office. “That’s all I can say.”
Well, yeah - cops never have much to say during the midst of criminal investigations, and Legacy, as might be expected, is downplaying the whole thing. Apparently, there are also concerns that people may have been exposed to diseases when handling the corpses. It really doesn't help that after a federal grand jury subpoenaed Legacy documents, said documents reportedly were headed to the shredders.
Probably pure coincidence, that; just the usual cleaning up that might be expected from the largest Portland hospital operators.
Legacy’s human resources department responded to concerns about shredding by telling the whistle-blower the files were duplicates. Two months later, Legacy eliminated that employee’s job.
Well, you know, duplication. That employee's job was probably being done by somebody else, anyway.
