[aigel]

Von Hagens is a very controversial figure in Germany. Numerous lawsuits around his exhibits, which have been around 10 years, drove his shows out of the country. He has factory size operations in a depressed East German town, Eastern Europe and China. The fact that he plastinates bodies in China is what brought up the question, where the "volunteers" came from in a communist country. I do not think that this issue was ever cleared up properly. Nowadays he has enough volunteers, where this probably is a non issue.

While I find the plastination method he invented ingenious and useful in science and education, I do not care for his commercialized exhibits and his recent attempt to start selling body parts to the general population as art. The commercialization and the art is what I do not agree with. Showing body parts in public for science education is great - i.e. the smoker's lungs or exhibits showing disease.

Isn't it a shame that a brilliant MD has nothing better to do with his technology and knowledge than to self promote and financially profit through his "art"? What happened to the Hippocratic oath?

Cheers,

George