Nurse speaks out after learning her uncle's body was stolen in Harvard morgue scandal
Janet Pizzi joined a class action lawsuit against the university after being informed that her uncle's cadaver was among the hundreds of those sold by former morgue manager Cedric Lodge.
Over 310 individuals are suing the medical school, demanding answers and accountability for the lack of oversight.
A Boston area nurse is speaking out after discovering that her uncle’s remains were mishandled in the recent Harvard Medical School morgue scandal.
Nurse Janet Pizzi appeared at a press conference on June 28 after learning that her uncle’s body was among those trafficked by longtime morgue manager, Cedric Lodge, who from roughly 2018 to 2022 engaged in removing and selling human remains from the university.
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Last month, Campus Reform reported on the Harvard cadaver trafficking scandal, including the network of accomplices who exchanged the bodies for thousands of dollars. One individual even paid to have human skin tanned in order to create leather.
Pizzi, along with over 310 individuals who claim to be impacted by the scandal, wonder how these actions went unnoticed for so long. “There’s a tremendous amount of accountability that has to be stepped up to here,” she said during the press conference.
She has since joined families in a class action lawsuit against Harvard, calling the scandal “the ultimate breach of trust.” One of the goals of the lawsuit is to find out more information about the lack of accountability and policies that enabled this incident.
Pizzi also expressed disgust over the lack of proper security at the morgue, stating, “I don’t understand why there was no cameras, why people weren’t seeing this.“
Pizzi is calling for more families potentially affected by the scandal to also speak up and demand answers from the medical school.
“I’m sure it’s very painful for all of the other folks — I can’t speak for anyone but myself — but that’s been my experience,” the nurse noted.
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Jonathan Sweet, one of the attorneys representing the impacted families in the class action lawsuit, said after the press conference that his hope was that the case would “help ensure that proper controls are put in place at this medical school and others that are out there that maybe don’t have controls either to prevent this from happening again.”
Campus Reform reached out to Harvard for additional comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
