SEATTLE -- If you marked "organ donation" on your driver's license, you may have given consent for something you can't imagine.

Over the past year, KIRO Team 7 Investigators have repeatedly exposed how the King County Medical Examiner’s Office traded hundreds of human brains to a research lab, collecting $1.5 million along the way. Dozens of families say King County failed to get proper consent. Four sued.

Now, Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne discovers a resulting court ruling might make everyone's donated body parts up for grabs.

I, along with 2.6 million other drivers in Washington, have a heart stamped in the corner of my license. it signifies organ donation.

A King County judge has just ruled that "heart-mark" allows your organs not just to be transplanted into a living person, but also your corpse donated to science. your family can't do anything to stop it.

21-year-old Jesse Smith was a proud organ donor. He signed the back of his driver’s license and told his mom that if he died, maybe he could save someone else's life. Jesse's chance came far sooner than anybody is comfortable with.

“They just couldn't get his heart beating back.”

Within hours of Jesse's sudden cardiac death, Nancy Adams learned her son's organs could not be used for live transplant. However, what she didn't know was that his brain, liver and spleen were being removed down at the King County Medical Examiner's Morgue and mailed to an outside research company.

“Our son's organs were taken without his permission and without our permission and sent to a medical research institute back in Maryland who we had never heard of.”

Last year, KIRO Team 7 Investigators discovered Smith's body parts ended up at the Stanley Medical Research Institute. Jesse's entire brain was used as a "normal control" sample in a study on schizophrenia.

Smith's family sued, saying King County didn't get proper consent. Their attorney, Steve Bulzomi recently spoke with Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne about the case

Halsne: "Had Jesse ever expressed an interest in donating his deceased body parts for medical research?"
Bulzomi: "Never. He expressed a very firm conviction that he wanted it to be used for transplantation. To help living persons. He had no contemplation of his donation being used to advance the study of mental illness.”

A King County Superior Court judge now says ‘too bad.’

County attorneys successfully argued in court that Jesse Smith's " Designation as an Organ Donor on his Driver's License, authorized the donation to Stanley and "the donation of Smith's brain did not require the consent of Nancy Adams.. or anyone else."

According to Bulzomi, the message is alarming.

“If you've made the gift, your body is open for anybody to take your parts.”

The Washington Department of Licensing signs up the vast majority of this state’s organ donors. Workers aren't trained to do much more than just mark "donor" or "not" in the computer.

Spokesperson Brad Benfield says, “If they sign up through us, the only option they really have is to be a donor for both purposes (for living transplants) and for research purposes. That's the only way our system works right now.”

After we told DOL of King County's latest legal victory, that agency says it will immediately change its consent procedures so millions of organ donors aren't misled.

“All of us here at DOL were shocked to discover this ruling and how it effects potential organ donors,” added Benfield.

The DOL Web site clearly implies your organ donation will "save lives." It's information link send donors to LifeCenter Northwest, an organ transplant organizer and gatekeeper for Washington's donor registry list.

CEO Diana Clark says the public might now be scared to sign up at all. That would have a chilling effect on live transplant procedures.

“What the ripple effect of that is, it will cause a backlash to the good that's been done.”

Like her son, Nancy Adams believes organ donation is important. However, she doesn't think potential donors should have to ‘read the fine print’ to be fully informed about how science might use their dying or deceased bodies.

“If you don't have confidence that if you're an organ donor that your body is going to be treated with respect and wishes will be followed, that takes away the integrity of the program.”

Within a few months LifeCenter Northwest and the Department of Licensing tell us it will implement a new "kickback" letter campaign. That means is you sign up as an organ donor, you will get a follow up letter with specific options, like transplant only, research only, or both.

As for those of you who already have that heart on your license, unless you contact the living-legacy registry to limit your organ donation, your body parts can legally be handed over to universities, science labs, even government-related research projects.

Brain Harvesting Investigation