NEW ORLEANS -- Army medical officials in San Antonio confirmed Thursday that Fort Sam Houston used seven human bodies donated to a medical school to conduct land mine tests on the post.

Brooke Army Medical Hospital officials told KSAT 12 News that the cadavers were blown up in tests for protective footwear against land mines in January 2003.

The bodies were donated to the medical school at Tulane University in New Orleans, which were then sold to the Army for between $25,000 and $30,000.

Tulane University officials said they sold the cadavers to a company they thought would be passing them along to other medical schools in need of corpses.

But instead, they were then sold to the Army.

The school has suspended its contract with the anatomical services company.

The co-director of Tulane's Willed Body Program said the university receives up to 150 cadavers a year from donors but needs only between 40 and 45 for classes.

The university paid the cadaver company less than $1,000 a body to deliver surplus cadavers, thinking they were going to medical schools in need of corpses.

The market in bodies and body parts is under scrutiny after two men, including the head of the Willed Body Program at UCLA, were arrested and charged with trafficking in stolen body parts.