Willed Body Program remains on hold

Attorneys reaffirmed a temporary restraining order to
UCLA’s Willed Body Program and agreed to the terms of a
preliminary injunction Tuesday, hammering in the point that the
university will not accept any donated bodies until further
notice.

The preliminary injunction was on the table during an April 13
hearing, but there were still some issues that had to be resolved,
including language in the brief that court commissioner Bruce
Mitchell felt was repetitive.

“The court really just felt that there was some language
that was duplicative. (Mitchell) asked us to take some of the
language out,” said Mark Ozzello, an attorney representing
some of the families who donated bodies to UCLA.

The injunction results from the arrest of Henry Reid, former
director of UCLA’s Willed Body Program, who is suspected of
profiting from the sale of donated body parts.

Reid was hired in 1997 to clean up the program, which had been
tainted with allegations of misconduct.

Co-attorney Raymond Boucher also issued subpoenas Tuesday to
state agencies and private companies such as the Department of
Health and Johnson & Johnson, Ozzello said.

Before Boucher and Ozzello can receive all the information and
documents they need, the court must deal with certain privacy
issues that came up during Tuesday’s hearing.

“Some questions of privacy did arise. The court was
concerned that donors may have some privacy interests, and that the
donor’s families may have some privacy interests,”
Ozzello said.

Attorneys on all sides issued a protective order to resolve any
privacy concerns, Ozzello said.

The court felt the privacy issues should be dealt with before
the production and disclosure of all of the documents, he
added.

The court will address the protective order and those issues at
a May 3 hearing.

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