Bodies of Evidence

By Kevin Fedarko

The details were antiseptic yet chilling. Perhaps the most appalling nicety was bandaging the faces of the dead, so that researchers would not have to look into their eyes after the bodies were put through the automobile test crashes. How much indignity should human remains be allowed to suffer -- even for the cause of science? That ancient debate was renewed last week by the disclosure that Germany's University of Heidelberg had, for the past two decades, wired electronic sensors to more than 200 human corpses (including the bodies of eight children), strapped them into cars and hurled them at speeds of 30 m.p.h. into walls, barriers and other vehicles.

Society has always been reluctant to tolerate research on corpses, allowing it only when it serves to illuminate the unknown and improve medical science. But what if the purpose of desecrating the dead is to learn how to make a better Volkswagen? Germany's largest automobile club, ADAC, denounced the experiments with children's bodies as ethically unacceptable. Even more vehement was the Roman Catholic Church: "A repugnance to the conscience," seethed Vatican theologian Gino Concetti, who expressed "uncontrollable indignation" over tests for which there was "no moral justification."

Heidelberg researchers pointed out that the use of children's corpses ended in 1989 and that the tests had never been kept secret in the first place. One crash study was even published by a research group representing 40 German automakers including Daimler Benz, Volkswagen, Opel and Ford. University officials quickly added that while adult bodies were supplied by homeless people and organ donors, children's corpses were used only with the permission of families, who were fully informed of what the tests would entail.

Furthermore, Germans are not alone in testing corpses in car crashes. During the past 20 years, the French carmaker Renault said about 450 corpses had been used in accident simulations in France. And since the 1940s, cadavers have been crash-tested in the U.S. at the University of Virginia, the Medical College of Wisconsin and at Detroit's Wayne State University. General Motors and Ford continue to contribute 40% of the $750,000 Wayne State receives each year to conduct such tests.

In Germany parents who were asked to donate their children's bodies were at first appalled. But almost all subsequently gave their permission when they learned that data from the crash tests are vital for constructing more than 120 types of instrumented dummies, ranging in size from infants to adults, that can simulate dozens of human reactions in a crash.

Statistics, at least, seem to justify the use of cadavers. Despite a nearly 75% increase in the number of cars on the road during the past 20 years, the vehicle fatality rate in the U.S. has decreased more than half. Much of that improvement is due to the introduction of such devices as seat belts, air bags, safer windshields and stronger doors -- all of which were developed with the aid of crash dummies. "My research with children's corpses helps to save lives," Heidelberg researcher Dimitrios Kallieris told the German newspaper Bild. "Anyone who has seen smashed children in an accident will understand what is at stake."

With reporting by Rhea Schoenthal/Bonn and Joseph R. Szczesny/Detroit