Spooky Scary Skeleton, They’re Selling Him Online

In the spirit of Halloween we have another spooky article for you. A TikToker has gone viral because he sells human bones online. This is not a new conversation. In fact, due to a Tumblr post in 2015, the same ethics debate came about - should it be legal to sell human bones/remains online? Which, to be clear, the issue in 2015 was that a person was stealing bones from a cemetery and selling them and that is not the case this time. This time, it's the video platform TikTok's fault.

 TikToker Jon Ferry's collection of bones has the internet once again in a fuss over the ethics of buying and selling human remains online. Ferry has managed to build a large following of more than 450,000 followers who watch his short videos on human anatomy and forensic anthropology. These videos are up close and personal, under the username JonsBones, Ferry gives demonstrations on how forensic anthropologists use evidence of jaw deterioration to determine age at death. He will also use constructed appendages to show how the bones move as a person moves.

How did we get here? Of course, another TikToker reached out to Ferry wondering if they had found human bones in their wall and Ferry responded by showing what the bones would look like if they were human using an example from his collection. For the record, they were animal bones, not human. Then the comments started pouring in about how he obtained the bones. Ferry works with osteology, and he himself is neither an anthropologist nor a forensic osteology, but a buyer and distributor of said human remains. His company, also named JonsBones, sells these remains to bone scientists and medical institutions. So, is it legal? The answer is yes: in the U.S. there is no federal regulation on the ownership, sale, or possession of human osteology. There are a few states that do not allow the trade of human bones, but in most places it is completely legal.

So, what's the problem? It's mostly an issue of morality and culture. For example, how would a collector or buyer know that the bones were ethically sourced? What does ethically sourced human bone procurement mean? Do you get a profile with the bones and if so, what appropriate information would you need? Has anything like this happened before? Ignoring the 2015 bone stealer, it was not too long ago that bodies were being stolen and sold for medical students. In the 1800s it was common for grave robbers to dig up fresh bodies and sell them to medical schools or the highest bidder. Yes, there was upset and outrage at the time but it did not start to wane until cemeteries started having fences, guards, and even mobs of people guarding them. Grave robbing has never been legal, but more often than not if there is a will there is a way - especially when the justification is education or science related.

Circling back to Ferry - despite his altruistic motivation behind JonsBones, many are concerned that the bones will end up in the hands of private collectors who want to use the bones as decorations instead of medical schools or other people interested in learning from the bones. But ultimately, there are no federal laws against collecting bones in the U.S. yet, so time will tell what will happen.