[News] Selling the dead: USC supplied human bodies for 'Israel' war training

[Anti-Imperialist News]

english.almayadeen.net 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/selling-the-dead--usc-supplied-human-bodies-for--israel--war> 



  Selling the dead: USC supplied human bodies for 'Israel' war training

Al Mayadeen English
October 3, 2025
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unclaimed US corpses ended up on dissection tables for “Israel’s” 
military drills, raising grave ethical questions over consent and dignity.

  * Selling the dead: USC supplied human bodies for 'Israel' war
    training
    <https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2025/10/3/1f4419fa-a2ed-43bd-993c-0b3e13ec0adf.jpg?v=4&width=1000>
      In this Aug. 30, 2005, file photo, Pima County Chief Medical
    Examiner, Dr. Bruce Parks, pushes a gurney in the cooler room,
    looking for an empty space in the Pima County morgue which was
    forced to expand due to the number of bodies, in Tucson, Ariz (/AP/)

The University of Southern California (USC) has received nearly $1.1 
million from the US Navy over the past seven years for human cadavers 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/-israel--withholding-the-bodies-of-552-palestinians--pps> 
used in military medical training, including courses designed for the 
Israeli occupation Forces (IOF), according to federal contracts reviewed 
by /Annenberg Media/.

Since 2017, the Navy has paid USC more than $860,000 for at least 89 
“fresh cadaver bodies,” 32 of which were used by IOF medical teams at 
Los Angeles General Medical Center. One contract remains active, 
allowing an additional $225,000 in cadaver purchases through September 2026.

Although the cadaver contracts represent less than 1% of USC’s broader 
Navy agreements, researchers could not identify any other US university 
supplying bodies for IOF training.

The Navy Trauma Training Center (NTTC), which operates from L.A. 
General, oversees the courses. While US Navy physicians, nurses, and 
corpsmen rotate through a 30-day combat medicine program, IOF surgical 
teams undergo 96 hours of intensive trauma training.

Documents show that IOF personnel practiced on both non-perfused and 
perfused cadavers, the latter artificially pumped with blood to simulate 
battlefield conditions.


    Ethical questions over consent

Medical experts are raising alarms over how the bodies are sourced 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israeli-occupation-desecrates-gaza-martyrs-bodies--steals-vi>. 
Many come from the Los Angeles County Office of Decedent Affairs, which 
handles cremation and burial for unclaimed remains. Others are given 
away through USC’s Anatomical Gift Program.

“Even though they’re deceased, they still deserve dignity and proper 
treatment,” said Thomas Champney, an anatomy professor at the University 
of Miami who studies body donation ethics. He noted that, unlike organ 
donation, cadaver use is loosely regulated, with most universities 
operating under “blanket consent” policies.

Critics argue that there is no informed consent for cadavers being used 
by foreign military personnel. “Unclaimed bodies can’t consent at all,” 
Champney said, calling the practice “widely considered unethical.”

A Keck physician, who leaked the documents to /Annenberg Media/ under 
the condition of anonymity, went further, “The facility wasn’t designed 
to save lives. It was just to desensitize people to the trauma.”


    USC and Navy responses

Asked about the contracts, USC referred questions to L.A. General, which 
emphasized that “no foreign nationals participate through the L.A. 
County and US Navy contract.” The hospital described the Fresh Tissue 
Dissection Laboratory as a joint training resource, adding, “The County 
has no role regarding any use of this laboratory by foreign military 
personnel. Such access, if any, falls under a separate agreement between 
the US Navy and USC.”

The Keck School of Medicine defended the program, saying it provides 
“trauma training courses as part of our core commitment to saving 
lives.” Since 2013, the school confirmed, international medical 
personnel, including Israeli surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists, 
have participated in Navy-sponsored courses.

USC has worked closely with the US military for over 100 years, but its 
cadaver-based training for the IOF is relatively new. Archived Navy 
press releases indicate the IOF trauma courses began in 2013, four years 
before cadaver contracts were formalized.


    Unresolved debate

Each IOF course uses three cadavers, with multiple courses held 
annually. Contracts cover refrigeration, blood-flow simulation (“cadaver 
perfusion services”), antibody testing, and surgical supplies, as well 
as nearly 100 hours of staff and technician time per training session.

The partnership, Navy officials have said, strengthens ties with “one of 
our key military allies.”

The revelations highlight a murky intersection of science, ethics, and 
geopolitics. Families of the deceased may have little knowledge, or none 
at all, that their relatives’ bodies could be used in combat training 
for the Israeli occupation army amid its ongoing genocide in Gaza 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iof-spox-confess-to-stealing-bodies-of-the-buried-in-khan-yo>.

As one USC medical student, Claire, said at a campus panel, “USC profits 
off of this. It’s disgusting. If I were asked to work in that lab, I’d 
refuse.”

The most recent contract, still in effect, could keep cadaver training 
for Israeli army personnel running through 2026.

*Read more: 'Israel' reduced 604 mosques to rubble, stole 1,000 bodies 
from Gaza 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/-israel--reduced-604-mosques-to-rubble--stole-1-000-bodies-f>*

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