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Health

Patients say they caught deadly viruses from stolen body parts

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 29, 2006

NEW YORK - At least a dozen people who had routine operations say they caught deadly viruses and other germs from body parts stolen from corpses in a ghoulish scandal that has sent hundreds of people for tests.

The patients tested positive for germs that cause AIDS, hepatitis or syphilis after receiving tissue transplants, according to their lawyers and court records.

Lawsuits have been filed for two Midwestern men, one in Nebraska and one in Ohio. Both claim they caught a hepatitis virus from the tissue implanted in back and spine operations - a contention that may be difficult to prove.

Lawyers for both men say they know of no other factors that would put their clients at risk for hepatitis.

"It pretty much turned my world upside down," said one of the patients, Ned Jackson, 49, of Omaha, Neb.

The Associated Press talked to lawyers representing at least a dozen other clients who say medical tests show they have the AIDS or hepatitis virus or syphilis bacteria - all of which can be acquired from infected tissue. Those suits have not yet been filed and the lawyers are continuing to investigate their claims.

So far, about two dozen lawsuits have been filed in federal courts across the country, most seeking class-action status for hundreds of people who were implanted with tissues that the U.S. government recalled.

A New Jersey company, Biomedical Tissue Services, is accused of failing to gain consent to take bones, tendons, ligaments, skin and other tissue from cadavers. The best-known example involved the corpse of Alistair Cooke, the longtime host of the PBS series Masterpiece Theater. Cooke died of cancer at age 95, and his leg bones were removed and shipped to tissue processors for use in medical procedures.

About 1-million procedures a year involve implants of cadaver tissues. The companies that process the body parts for those surgeries say their products are safe and believe the case involving Biomedical Tissue of Fort Lee, N.J., is an aberration.

The owner of Biomedical Tissue and three others pleaded not guilty to the charges. The company has since closed. At least 8,000 people received its tissue, according to one tissue distributor.

[Last modified April 29, 2006, 01:18:13]