This article is part of “Dealing the Dead,” a series investigating the use of unclaimed bodies for medical research.
The president of the University of North Texas Health Science Center is stepping down, four months after an NBC News investigation uncovered that the center had failed to contact families before using their loved ones’ corpses for medical research.
In an announcement Monday, the University of North Texas System Board of Regents said it had accepted Sylvia Trent-Adams’ resignation. The three-paragraph statement, which praised Trent-Adams’ “dedication, integrity, and respect,” did not mention NBC News’ reporting or include a reason for her departure.
In an email responding to questions, Health Science Center spokesperson Andy North said Trent-Adams “has indicated her reasons for this departure are personal.” Trent-Adams didn’t respond to a message requesting comment.
In September, NBC News published the first installment of a yearlong investigation into the Fort Worth-based Health Science Center’s practice of chopping up, studying and leasing out the bodies of the unclaimed dead — those whose family members often cannot be easily reached, or whose relatives cannot pay for cremation or burial.
Over a five-year period, the center had received about 2,350 unclaimed bodies from Dallas and Tarrant counties and used many of them to train medical students; others it dissected and leased to outside groups, including major biotech companies and the U.S. Army, helping bring in about $2.5 million a year to the center. This was done without consent from the dead and, in many cases, without the knowledge of any of their survivors.
Just days before NBC News’ investigation was published, after reporters had shared detailed findings, the Health Science Center announced it was suspending its body donation program, firing the officials who ran it and hiring a consulting firm to study the program’s operations.
In emails to students and faculty, Trent-Adams said the reporting had revealed “a lack of sufficient controls and oversight” of the center’s Willed Body Program, which she said had “fallen short of the standards of respect, care and professionalism that we demand.” She said center leadership had been unaware, for example, that the body program was routinely shipping unclaimed remains — including those of U.S. military veterans — across state lines.
In the days that followed, Trent-Adams fielded several messages from concerned students, staff and alumni, according to emails obtained through a public records request. In one message, a Health Science Center medical student wrote that they’d been taught that “consent is at the forefront of the practice of medicine,” but that NBC News’ reporting had “called into question whether the administration was practicing this in our academic anatomy lab.”
“It makes me sick to my stomach to think that we dissected bodies without consent,” another student wrote to Trent-Adams. “We referred to them as ‘donors’ because that is what we thought they were, not indigent individuals who had no say in the matter.”
Many of those whose bodies were used by the Health Science Center were described as having no next of kin, but NBC News was able to quickly locate several families who were angry and heartbroken to learn from reporters that their relatives had been dissected and studied without permission. In October, the news outlet published the names of hundreds of people whose unclaimed bodies were sent to the center, leading more survivors to come forward. In total, reporters have identified more than 25 families who learned weeks, months or years later that a relative was used for research.
As additional survivors came forward, the Health Science Center said in a statement in September that officials were “working to connect with families to extend our deepest apologies.”
Abigail Willson was among those seeking answers. She learned of her mother’s death and donation to the Health Science Center from the list published by NBC News. When Willson and her family went to the center in October to request more information, she said a staff member told them Trent-Adams wished to meet with them.
“We sat there for 45 minutes, and the president of the university never came,” Willson said. “Then they took our information to give to her, and she never called.”
The fallout continued in November when the Texas Funeral Service Commission sent a letter to Trent-Adams ordering the center to immediately halt the practice of liquefying bodies, which the commission said was prohibited under state law. The center defended the legality of the practice commonly known as water cremation, but said it had stopped doing it on the day NBC News published its investigation in September.
The Health Science Center had been receiving unclaimed bodies since at least 2019, three years before Trent-Adams was hired as president following a career in the military. She previously served as acting U.S. surgeon general during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Her last day at the Health Science Center will be Jan. 31.
Tyler Kingkade and Jon Schuppe contributed.
