It has become standard operating procedure that when you renew or obtain your driver's license, you're given the chance to sign on as an organ donor.
Statistically, just over 50% of drivers sign on that dotted line, helping put a dent in the list of more than 100,000 people awaiting organ transplantation at any given time. The process is strictly regulated by the federal government, and the parties involved follow a specific set of rules every step of the way.
There's another type of donation that also serves to help others and advance science, although you can't sign up for it at the DMV. Commonly known as body donation, this far-less regulated type of donation runs a bit under the radar. While its outcome is usually to a good end, potential donors and their families should understand what they're signing up for when giving consent.
Unfortunately, with no federal oversight, the body donation market varies widely from state to state and from organization to organization. The result can be confusion, misunderstanding, and sometimes heartache for the families of loved ones whose bodies have been donated to science. The recent case of stolen heads in Denver, where police earlier this month said someone broke into a truck and stole a box labeled "exempt human specimen" that contained human heads used in research, only serves to illustrate the point.
