Man Says He Sold UCLA's Cadavers By Charles Ornstein and Richard Marosi and earlier Sale of Body Parts at UCLA Alleged By Charles Ornstein, where he reveals,

Authorities, who first became aware of problems Feb. 26, said they are trying to determine the full extent of the alleged wrongdoing and potential charges.

This news led me to Profit Drives Illegal Trade in Body Parts By Alan Zarembo and Jessica Garrison:

The trade in human body parts is a seller's market.

Pharmaceutical companies buy everything from fingernails to tendons to use for research.

Medical instrument firms conduct training seminars for doctors, filling anatomy laboratories — or hotel event rooms — with trays of knees or heads that surgeons can use to acquaint themselves with new devices and techniques.

Then there are at least 50 surgical products made from human skin, bones and heart valves that are used in procedures ranging from lip enhancements to fracture repairs.

Bodies also end up as crash-test dummies and are used in other product-safety research...

By some estimates, a single body can be used to make products worth more than $200,000.

Funny the article doesn't refer to an earlier one by Alan Zarembo from the same paper: Cutting Out the Cadaver: Dissecting human bodies in medical school anatomy labs, long a gruesome rite of passage for doctors, is going the way of house calls.

Most medical schools have scaled back the time students spend in the anatomy lab to give them more time to study molecular biology or genetics. A few have eliminated dissection as a requirement for being a doctor. When UCSF, one of the top medical schools in the nation, did away with the requirement two years ago, it sent shudders through the field of anatomy.

The future is moving toward ready-to-view, professionally dissected specimens (known as "prosections") that allow students to scoot in and out of class with a minimum of mess, and computer simulations that do away with cadavers entirely...

In the old days, cadavers were not always treated respectfully. Some doctors and anatomy professors remember intestines being used to jump rope or stiff lips jammed with lighted cigarettes, pranks born from mix of testosterone and nervousness.

So did Alan Zarembo find out something funny was going on? Anyway, pranks with my body wouldn't bother me, but I'd much prefer to get my money's worth. OK, I know I wouldn't get $200,000, but it seems an awful waste to deny my heirs the chance to get some money for my body.