What am I worth, part-wise?

Factual Questions
1

Just morbidly curious. I am a 70 year old woman, with high blood pressure, a heart murmur, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, some psoriasis patches on my calves, retinal problems, cataracts, a touch of developing deafness, and… I think that’s the current list. But I had uterine cancer about 30 years ago, no recurrences, so apparently cured after surgery and radiation therapy.

Suppose I manage to drop dead right on the threshold of a hospital from something non systemic. Like someone shoots a bullet into my head. So they’d get their hands on me while my corpse is daisy fresh. What parts of me would still be desired for donation to living people? (Not research or body farm type stuff for this question, though in actuality I’d be fine with either.)

Absolutely no one would want my kidneys or heart. I think eyes would be problematic, unless they use just corneas for anything these days?

I’m plain old O pos, so my blood isn’t very valuable. (And a lot of it probably got sprayed onto the ground from the gunshot anyway.)

I’m a life long non-smoker, basically always worked in ‘clean’ office jobs and lived in non-polluted areas. Still, would 70 year old lungs be considered?

I never heard of donations of any alimentary system stuff, but never had any problems related to those things aside from a few bouts of food poisoning.

I’ve had maybe five alcoholic drinks in my life – maybe an old liver is still useful? (If the recipient was already old, too.)

I’ve heard of bone/marrow donations. Would that be good despite age?

Or maybe skin. I’ve got lots of that, and except for a few square inches of psoriasis it’s really very nice. I’ve never been a sun worshipper and been fanatic about sunscreen and wearing hats. Not for permanent stuff, but I’ve read that they used cadaver skin as temporary coverings for bad burns, so maybe? Or do they now have artificial substitutes for that?

So, which parts of my hypothetically dead body might be of medical worth despite my age and health conditions?

(I think that’s everything, but please add anything I’ve missed out.)

2

I’m younger than you, and I’ve aged out of bone marrow donation. Apparently, success rates are much higher with younger donors.

Skin transplants are rare, in part because the skin is extremely immunologically active, so you need to damage the immune system more for a skin transplant to not be rejected than for a lot of other body parts. But if they use cadaver skin for temporary stuff, yours might be useful.

I think your liver is the most likely.

I’m curious, though.

3

This is difficult to parse.

It is illegal to sell body parts for transplant in the US (so, technically those parts are worth nothing).

But, it is legal to sell cadavers and body parts for science.

Near as I can tell you can only donate your body for science or organs for transplant. But, those who get the parts may be able to sell them for science (not transplant) once you are dead. Think a cadaver for med students to dissect.

Again though…this seems unclear. Certainly there is a cost to transplants (a high cost) but not for the part itself. The cost is in the effort needed to get the part from one person to another.

I have a vague memory that you could sell your future dead body for science. You’d get some money today with a guarantee that, when you die, they get your body for whatever they want for science. But I am really, really not sure about that. And I do not think it was a lot of money…a few hundred dollars.

Body brokers are also known as non-transplant tissue banks. They are distinct from the organ and tissue transplant industry, which the U.S. government closely regulates. Selling hearts, kidneys and tendons for transplant is illegal. But no federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. Few state laws provide any oversight whatsoever, and almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human body parts. - SOURCE

4

Do you have lovely long shampoo-advert quality hair, full of body and bounce? Would that be sellable for wig-making (after all the gunshot goo was cleaned off with a good PH-balanced conditioning lotion)?

5

Unca Cecil’s column on wigs:

If you took a head shot, I’d think everything above your clavicles is useless. I may be misremembering this, but the systemic shock from a bullet wound turns all your internal organs to mush (@Qadgop, would you clarify?).

Maybe bone donation?

6

Do you have life insurance? In most cases that will provide the best payoff based on the transfer of your once living body to the world of the departed. Otherwise, it’s not a free market as @Whack-a-Mole pointed out so it’s difficult to determine the value of your body parts. There was an old joke that the human body broken down to it’s constituent components would be worth about $1.79, however the body of David Crosby due to his extensive drug use would have a street value of about $40 an ounce.

7

Sorry, I guess I worded the title strangely. I’m not looking to acquire money in exchange for whatever chunk of ex-me. (Hey, I’m dead. Even if you believe in an afterlife, I doubt the dead spend a lot of money.)

“Worth” in the sense that some parts of me might still be of use to help other people with medical needs.

(I specify ‘medical’, because I’m also not after a guess at how much per pound I’m worth to a cannibal.)

8

Alas, no. It used to be a nice enough color – like the brown with reddish tinge of classic Hershey bar wrappers – wavy and thick, the length varied widely over time. Nowadays? Mostly gray, shortish, and nowhere near as lush. Aging sucks in all aspects.

9

Shoot, because I was going to make a comment about bone broth for soups.

10

Dunno about the age, but… a few years back, a colleague of my husband was murdered in a hit-and-run. He was on life support for a day or two before the family made the call to donate / unplug.

As I gather, they were specifically told that his corneas and his liver were used.

As he was well known for enjoying stopping by the bar near the office and doing elbow-bending exercises, everyone was bemused - EVERYONE’s reaction was “… his LIVER???”. His brother said “Well, at least they know it’s a strong, well-exercised liver”.

He was likely in his 40s at the time.

Dunno if they’d take any of my parts. I keep trying to develop colon cancer, and they might decide that makes me ineligible in case it’d actually developed and spread.

My hair might be eligible to sell - it’s largely in decent shape, and right now it’s QUITE long - but there’s enough gray mixed in that they might not want that. I suspect I’d do better to try to sell it before I shuffle off this coil.

11

I think that the impact of drinking on the liver is more a matter of rolling the dice… The more you drink, the more often the dice are rolled, but you can still get lucky and avoid serious damage.

And of course, organ matches are a rare thing, so that One Specific Patient who matches his organs might have a choice between a partially-damaged liver or no liver at all.