Southern California Universities Provided Cadavers for Navy Medical Training

The University of Southern California and the University of California, San Diego have supplied human cadavers to the U.S. Navy for a combat trauma surgery skills course, including sessions attended by Israeli military medical personnel. The programme has operated for years, with records showing cadavers supplied since 2018 and Israeli military medics participating as early as 2013. The training uses donated bodies to simulate battlefield injuries in an intensive surgical course.

USC supplied at least 89 “fresh cadavers” from 2018 under agreements tied to training for U.S. Navy and Israeli military personnel, according to records cited in the report. A 2020 medical paper co-authored by USC and Navy instructors described a four-day course for Israeli military forward surgical teams.

The paper said the course used a technique described as “reanimating” cadavers through perfusion, a method that pumps simulated blood through the body to mimic active bleeding. Participants trained on scenarios including gunshot wounds and blast trauma, the report said.

Records show transfers from UC San Diego

A student investigation that began in 2025 found UC San Diego transferred 124 bodies to USC between 2024 and early 2026 for the programme, the report said. The investigation focused on how body donations intended for education and research were ultimately used in military-linked training.

Both universities described the programme as “educational” and denied it constitutes “military training,” according to the report. USC also described the Israeli medical personnel as “noncombatants,” the report said.

Family concerns and Navy description of the course

Some donor families said they were distressed to learn donated remains may have been used for military surgical training, the report said. The U.S. Navy said simulated injuries were created using “surgical” techniques to provide a “high-fidelity, hyper-realistic training environment.”

Questions about consent and disclosure are likely to keep attention on how universities describe the end use of donated bodies and how military-linked medical training programmes are structured and overseen.