Families of five men who died in Alabama prisons are suing the prison system and UAB (University Of Alabama Birmingham). The inmates had their autopsies conducted by UAB. The lawsuits allege, the inmates’ bodies were sent to funeral homes, where funeral directors discovered they were missing their organs. The lawsuits each allege that the university took, and kept, inmates’ organs without consent of next-of-kin.

According to the lawsuit from the Kennedy family, a representative from UAB told them: “UAB Defendants’ Department of Pathology takes organs ‘all the time.’” The family also said they were told by someone in the pathology department that “UAB is a teaching institution. And every teaching institution that does autopsies keeps their organs.”

While the new lawsuits don’t say what happened to the organs, it mentions an incident several years ago at the medical school. In 2018, a group of UAB medical students were concerned about the body parts and tissues they were using as part of their training that had come from people who died in prison, according to the lawsuit, and took their concerns to an ethics oversight committee.

Several of those UAB students later appeared before the committee and were told that the removal of organs was part of the process for autopsies performed on prisoners. That panel also emphasized that the organs would benefit future doctors’ training and if they weren’t used, would just be thrown away.

“Thus, it was a position of the ethics committee that the autopsy process and the teaching uses of specimens obtained through the autopsy on incarcerated individuals in the current fashion would be ethically permissible,” said the lawsuits.

Update: In May, '24 UAB Hospital’s pathology department announced it will no longer be conducting the autopsies of dead state inmates after UAB severed its contract with the Alabama Department of Corrections.

“While the UAB Department of Pathology has been in compliance with laws governing autopsies to determine the cause of death of incarcerated individuals under the appropriate clinical standard – and a panel of medical ethicists reviewed and endorsed our protocols regarding autopsies conducted for incarcerated persons – we have terminated our contract with the Alabama Department of Corrections and no longer perform autopsies for ADOC,” the hospital said in a statement Monday to AL.com.

The hospital declined to comment beyond its statement.

Lauren Faraino, an attorney representing several families suing the hospital, said the termination of the contract has no bearing on the pending litigation.

“The termination of the UAB/ADOC contract does not change anything concerning the lawsuits that have been filed. The damage to those families has already been done,” she said. “The law clearly required medical examiners to get proper consent for organ removal during autopsies, and UAB did not.”

The Church & Ascension St. Vincent's have remained silent on the charges of organ theft aga