The article explains why this is risky. Were I in possession of a bionic limb, I personally couldn’t afford to replace it so it wouldn’t be worth the risk.
Once companies have branded their products, tidily and permanently painting over or erasing the logos can be challenging and expensive. Generally, a clinician will offer to customize a limb’s socket (the part that covers the residual limb). But many prosthetics techs are hesitant to alter bionic parts. Damage the product while customizing it, Dez Joseph, a prosthetist and orthotist in New York City, told me, and that could invalidate the warranty on a device that can cost as much as or more than a Jaguar.
Insurance also won’t cover the work, because it’s considered cosmetic, Joseph said. And because getting insurance approval for prosthetics can already be a battle, for some people professional customization is effectively impossible. Certain companies, such as Ottobock, offer gloves made to resemble hands (complete with wrinkles), which conceal any labeling, but Schneider and Joseph both told me that these covers can hinder some of the device’s efficacy.
This is complicated to unravel and has lots of similarities to the Tri-State Crematory Scandal.
Who owns a dead body? Does the state? Does the family? Take religion out of the picture for a few minutes as well so we can properly separate church and state. Someone dies without (available at that moment) relatives or a will defining what happens with the body. Alternatively someone dies and has not actually paid for the stuff stipulated in their will and does not have the resources to do so. What should happen? Something possibly like, in order,
Dead bodies can’t just sit around. They can cause serious health and environmental problems if not properly disposed of, so something has to be done. Remember, we’ve set aside religion, so a dead body is literally just a resource. It can be turned into cremains, it can be buried, or it can be sold for various uses. What should the state regulate here? What’s wrong with the state turning a dead body into some money? How much responsibility do families have in respecting last wishes? How much time and effort should the state put into investigating those? Do dead bodies really matter? How much land are we willing to turn over to cemeteries today? In ten years? In one hundred years?
Now if you bore with me this long and agree that dead bodies can be sold, I also strongly feel like there should be compensation to these families with interest for that shit. If you steal my resources and don’t tell me, the state already requires repayment. That’s what should happen here. It gets murkier once you add religion back in because you can’t really undo a lot of these things.
Dallas County is doing something wrong. But it’s way more complicated underneath the hood than normal Texas government shenanigans.