Family fears mother's donated body was sold to Israeli military surgeons.

LOS ANGELES, California – Miriam Volpin, a medical case manager currently working in Nevada, was shaken when a message arrived from a University of Southern California (USC) student journalist. The student, Jennifer Nehrer, was leading an investigation into alarming claims: human bodies donated to the university for education and research were being sold to the United States Armed Forces, with some potentially ending up in the hands of Israeli military surgeons.

"I just got sick to my stomach," Volpin told Al Jazeera upon hearing the news. Her 101-year-old mother, Jeanette, had passed away in 2021. A former flight nurse who served during World War II, Jeanette had previously arranged to donate her body to USC for medical study. Now, Volpin fears her mother's remains were among those used to train surgical teams for conflicts, including Israel's war in Gaza.

The AJ+ documentary series *Direct From* has spoken with Volpin and other family members who are questioning whether their loved ones' bodies were used to train military personnel. The team also interviewed the student journalists who broke the story in 2025 to expand their investigation. Their reporting uncovered that USC was one of only two schools in southern California supplying cadavers to the US Navy for use by Israeli surgical teams.

Documents indicate that since 2018, USC has provided at least 89 fresh cadavers under agreements designed to train both US Navy and Israeli military personnel. While public information regarding the specific Israeli training remains scarce, a 2020 medical paper co-authored by USC and US Navy instructors offers a rare look inside the procedure.

The document describes a four-day "combat trauma surgery skills course" designed for "forward surgical teams" within the Israeli military—units operating near the front lines. During these sessions, the donated bodies were "reanimated" through a process called perfusion. This method involves pumping fake blood through the cadavers to make them appear as lifelike as possible, simulating the active bleeding of wounded soldiers on a battlefield.

The paper outlines how participants trained on simulated combat injuries, including gunshot wounds to the chest and legs, as well as blasts to the face and torso from improvised explosive devices. When asked repeatedly which injuries were simulated and how, USC provided no comment. Meanwhile, the US Navy told Al Jazeera that the simulated injuries were created using "surgical" techniques. In a statement, the Navy explained that experienced trauma surgeons use surgical tools to recreate complex injury patterns, delivering a high-fidelity, hyper-realistic training environment.

However, several trauma surgeons told Al Jazeera that using perfused cadavers is typically reserved for highly specialized training and is not a standard practice across most surgical programs.

While public interest in these military contracts has recently surged, the specialized training program appears to have been active for nearly a decade. Federal contract records show USC has sold cadavers to the US Navy for the Israeli program since 2018, though Israeli military medics reportedly arrived in Los Angeles to train with the university and Navy as early as 2013. In an email exchange with Al Jazeera, USC denied that the surgery skills course was a "military programme," characterizing it instead as having an "educational" nature.

USC has officially designated Israeli medical personnel as noncombatants, yet a troubling discrepancy has emerged regarding the source of the cadavers required for their training program. Facing a shortfall in available bodies, the university sought assistance from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), an institution with established contracts supplying cadavers to the U.S. military. An investigation conducted by student journalists at both institutions revealed that the majority of these donors originated from UCSD. Between 2024 and early 2026, a total of 124 bodies were transferred from UCSD to USC to facilitate this training.

In response to inquiries from AJ+, UCSD issued a denial, asserting that its cadavers are not utilized for "military training" and characterizing such a claim as a misrepresentation of the course curriculum. However, materials reviewed by AJ+ from Israeli sources indicate a surging demand for surgical instruction linked to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Since the war commenced in 2023, an increasing number of senior Israeli military doctors and surgeons have embedded with frontline brigades, according to documents obtained by the outlet.

A profound ethical crisis has surfaced concerning the consent of the donors. Regulations prohibit donors from requesting specifics on how their bodies will be used, and their families are barred from accessing this information post-mortem. Documents reviewed by AJ+ failed to disclose that the cadavers would be used to train military personnel from either the United States or Israel. Dr. Mohamad Raad, a physician affiliated with USC, questioned whether donors would have agreed to such arrangements had they known their bodies would be used for advanced procedures like perfusion. "Regardless of whether we think it's gruesome to do that to a dead body, the part that's even more disturbing, honestly, to me is: Did the patient know?" Raad stated. "And by doing these procedures, coordinating with foreign armies, would they have agreed to that?"

Jennifer Gomez, whose grandmother Jean McNeil Sargent donated her body to UCSD in 2012, offered a resounding rejection of the situation. "I didn't realise that we were having international militaries come here to train on our families' bodies," Gomez told Al Jazeera, specifically noting the involvement of militaries accused of war crimes. Although her grandmother passed away before UCSD began supplying cadavers for the Israeli program, Gomez insists that all potential uses must be disclosed to donors beforehand. She emphasized that individuals typically donate with the intention of contributing positively to the world, not inadvertently empowering military forces.

The implications of these revelations have already altered the decisions of prospective donors. English professor Wendy Smith expressed that she no longer feels comfortable donating her body following the report. "I don't want to support genocide and starvation, and I don't want to support Israeli policies even in the smallest way," Smith stated in April. Consequently, both she and her husband have revoked their body donations to UCSD.

While research advocates maintain that body donations remain essential for teaching medical fundamentals, families like Volpin argue that universities owe donors significantly greater transparency. Volpin described herself as deeply shaken by the exposure of the story and called for immediate action. "I think that they should acknowledge that they have misled people and state how they're going to go forward to protect their own donation programme," she urged.

It is likely in complete disarray due to a severe lack of trust," Volpin stated.

However, potential donors like Smith feel their worries about the training program are being ignored entirely.

Following Smith's decision to withdraw as a future body donor, she received a reply from a UCSD representative.

The official message claimed, "We will not be responding to factually inaccurate reporting by student reporters who have an agenda."

Student journalists have firmly rejected this characterization, insisting their work was never driven by any hidden motive.

"The only agenda we've ever had was to investigate and report on the truth," said USC student journalist Sasha Ryu.

Thomas Murphy, another co-author on the investigation, told AJ+ that learning about the surgical training program deeply upset his interviewees.

Murphy explained that donor families are deeply shaken because what was once a memory of love and pride is now tarnished by the institution's actions.

Just before AJ+ released its documentary last month, University of California Health updated its FAQ page regarding body donations.

The revised text now admits that donated bodies may be "shared" with other institutions to train military medical personnel.

"It just seems like they're trying to cover up something, cover their backs if lawsuits are brought," Gomez, a family member, told Al Jazeera.

Despite these changes, neither of the two universities involved in the program updated their own individual FAQ pages.

Meanwhile, the US Navy has issued a "notice of intent" to renew contracts for the program with USC through at least 2029.