Harvard to pay $53M in suit over selling donated corpses on black market

Key Points:

• Harvard University will pay $53 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that former morgue manager Cedric Lodge mishandled and sold body parts of cadavers donated to Harvard Medical School.
• Lodge, who worked at Harvard’s morgue for nearly 30 years, was arrested in 2023 and sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling organs and body parts, sometimes with his wife who received a prison sentence of just over a year.
• Families accused Harvard of negligence, claiming the university knew about Lodge’s illegal activities but ignored them until his indictment; the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court revived the lawsuit in October, citing poor faith by the university.
• As part of the settlement, Harvard will provide a formal statement to affected families, hold a webinar acknowledging the wrongdoing, and establish an annual scholarship in honor of those who donated their bodies for research.
• Harvard Medical School officials condemned Lodge's actions as a betrayal of medical community values, emphasizing a commitment to preventing similar incidents in the future.