A being has the same,” writes Emily Dickinson in The Bone that Has No Marrow.
Bones in need of marrow need people willing to be bone marrow donors; non-profit institutions like university hospitals are among the beings who have obligations to handle the pulling in of donors in a seemly and humane way.
After all, they’re non-profits, dedicated to education and healing. Right?
That perennial class act, the University of Massachusetts, burnishes its reputation once again:
… UMass Memorial Health Care Inc.’s use of pricey models in short skirts and spike heels to entice people to sign up for its bone marrow registry, while allegedly misleading consumers about the cost of testing, has drawn scrutiny of the hospital chain from authorities in New Hampshire.
Condemning the practice as a scam involving “suspect marketing and billing practices,’’ New Hampshire Attorney General Michael A. Delany yesterday announced a major probe of shopping-mall bone marrow donor recruitment drives by UMass Memorial and its subsidiary, the Caitlin Raymond International Registry.
James T. Boffetti, New Hampshire senior assistant attorney general, said in a telephone interview yesterday afternoon that his office will investigate potential criminal violations of New Hampshire’s Consumer Protection Act as part of a joint probe with the state’s Insurance Department.
Caitlin Raymond staff and the models from a Boston agency, which charged UMass Memorial between $40,000 and $50,000 a week for about a year and a half, told potential donors that the DNA test required to join the registry did not cost anything, Boffetti said.
However, UMass Memorial billed the potential donors’ insurance companies as much as $4,300 per test, far more than the roughly $100 charged by most labs, according to Boffetti.
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A new fighting song for U Mass.
We whore for bone marrow
Through malls broad and narrow…
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UD thanks Dennis.
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Not that I want to pile on, but really.
December 17th, 2010 at 11:21AM
Emily Dickinson doesn’t really lend herself to limericks, so I had to go with more free-form doggerel:
A bone has obligations
But a boner has them, too,
So in our calculations
We use blondes to get to you.
With small outlay of dinero
And your love for well-toned ass
We’ll get your precious marrow
For the glory of UMass.
December 17th, 2010 at 11:35AM
Dave: Laugh Out Loud. I feel competitive. I’ll come up with something…
December 19th, 2010 at 1:22PM
Wow, that’s really sleazy. I signed up to be a marrow donor at my local blood bank and just gave them the $100.