While I was working on the Lenin story, I noticed an odd juxtaposition: on my computer screen, Lenin was lying in state in his masoleum in Moscow while on my television screen, Ronald Reagan was lying in state in Washington. As I was tracking down Oskar Vogt's slices of Lenin's brain, wondering what proof of pox could be found in those pickled tissues, I was remembering a post I did some time ago about a study showing spirochetes (of a different sort) in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, questioning then why that study had not been replicated.
A few days later Gavin Yamey, who wrote a lovely review of POX for the British Medical Journal asked me to do an article on the ethics of using bodily remains for medical testing for the new international health journal that is part of the the “open access” movement, a non-profit committed to making the biomedical literature a freely available public resource. (His contact info: http://plosmedicine.org) --Gavin Yamey MD, MRCP. Magazine Editor, PLoS Medicine, Public Library of Science, 185 Berry St, Ste. 1300, San Francisco, CA 94107 USA http://www.plos.org).
Thinking as I have been for the past few days about various remaining body parts of the deceased famous, I was wondering how much land/resources are currently being used to dispose of people who die today. Is there a better alternative to the Neptune Society? I just received an email from Mark Meritt, who posted the statistics -- as well as a green alternative-- on his new website, potluck.com. Non-Fiction - Essay: Adding a Final Nail to the Coffin, by Mark S. Meritt - June 28, 2004
But enough cheery thoughts for tonight.
Comments