Summary
UK pathologist Professor Dick van Velzen was banned from medical practice after he was convicted of "serious professional misconduct" for secretly harvesting organs from deceased infants without parents' permission, reports News-Medical Net.
Original source:
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=11217
Details
Over a six year period in the pathology department at Liverpool's Alder Hey Hospital 56 year old Professor van Velzen, took organs from children's bodies without the relatives' consent.
During an investigation into the retention scandal more than 2,000 pots containing body parts from about 850 infants were discovered at the hospital.
Van Velzen was struck off by a GMC Fitness to Practise Panel sitting in Manchester last week, the panel found almost all charges proven against the doctor who is originally from Oegstgeest in Holland.
When the disciplinary hearing started Professor van Velzen told representatives from the GMC he did not wish to know anything about the proceedings.
Ian Chisholm, the chairman of the panel, said that Professor van Velzen had retained organs without permission and effectively lied to the parents of dead children.
He said the professor's actions were a violation of the children's bodies, and undermined the trust placed in medical practitioners to such an extent that it had damaged the medical processional as a whole.
Parents who were directly affected by the scandal said yesterday they were delighted with the decision and members of the PITY II support group called for him to be banned from practising across the world.
Alice Proctor, the group's spokeswoman, says they hope that the ruling will reach further than the UK and feel very strongly that Van Velzen should never be allowed to practise pathology again anywhere in the world.
The scandal began in September 1988 when van Velzen was appointed to the chair of foetal and infant pathology at Liverpool University and became honorary consultant paediatric pathologist at Alder Hey Hospital.
His role was to carry out post-mortem examinations and write up reports, but while predecessors had stored glass slides or small "blocks" of tissue from children's
organs, Professor van Velzen retained thousands of pots of whole organs without their parents' consent.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher, author and award-winning journalist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, and he has authored and published several downloadable personal preparedness courses including a downloadable course focused on safety and self defense. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2010, Adams created TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural living video sharing site featuring thousands of user videos on foods, fitness, green living and more. He's also the CEO of a highly successful email newsletter software company that develops software used to send permission email campaigns to subscribers. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, martial arts and organic gardening. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org
Have comments on this article? Post them here:
people have commented on this article.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Email this article to a friend
Share
this article on: 
