The son of an elderly woman whose body was donated for scientific study was mortified to find out it was allegedly used for "blast training" by the US Army.

Doris Stauffer, 73, suffered from Alzheimer's disease before dying in Arizona in 2014.

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Her son Jim was told she didn't have the gene for the disease, he told ABC15.

Doctors wanted to study the great-grandmother's brain to find out how the gene may have mutated, to which he consented and donated her body to the Biological Research Center.

Two days later, he claims he received a wooden box with a "majority" of her ashes and no explanation of what kind of study she would undergo.

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He says he learnt years later what really happened to his mother when Reuters exposed the company for allegedly selling a number of the bodies to the US Army for testing explosives and their impact on the human body.

"I feel foolish," he said.

"She was supposedly strapped in a chair on some sort of apparatus, and a detonation took place underneath her to basically kind of get an idea of what the human body goes through when a vehicle is hit by an IED."

Traumatised

He says he's still traumatised by the experience and will struggle to ever overcome it.

Stauffer's name is that of one of many plaintiffs named in a lawsuit against the Biological Resource Center and its owner Stephen Gore.

Jim claims he explicitly signed paperwork against donating her body for testing by the US Army.

Federal raid

In 2016, the Army told Reuters, the military reviewed "heavily redacted forms or forms signed by an agent of BRC that indicated consent".

Reuters reports it is Army policy not to use bodies if a donor didn't approve use in military research.

A lawsuit against the centre, of which more than 30 families are registered as plaintiffs, will continue on August 13.

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