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Tainted Tissue Breaking News: June 13 , 2006
A gruesome scandal has come to light recently as a tissue recovery firm lead by a former dentist in Fort Lee, New Jersey has been is accused of selling infected body parts from illegally harvested human cadavers across the United States and Canada. Authorities are investigating Biomedical Tissue Service, a tissue recovery firm that allegedly harvested human tissues such as bones, skin and tendons from body parts that were taken without permission and were distributed without medical safeguards and health screenings.
These illicit tissues were then sold to processing firms such as Tutogen Medical, Inc. in Florida, Regeneration Technologies, Inc. of Florida, and LifeCell Corp. in New Jersey, who then distributed them to hospitals and other medical facilities involved in surgical operations and transplants. A physician at LifeCell actually prompted the FDA investigation after noticing discrepancies in some of the documentation. The company issued a recall on September 30, 2005 and notified the FDA about the concerns.
The controversy is not only morbid, but it could prove dangerous to those who received the tainted tissue unknowingly. Patients have already begun receiving letters from investigators and hospitals informing them of the risk of HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis. One Long Island woman has planned to sue after learning that she contracted syphilis allegedly from bone tissue sold by Biomedical Tissue Service.
The infected body parts scandal has thrown the human tissue bank industry into the national spotlight and has raised serious questions about the business practices and the safety protocols in place to protect patients. Critics claim that the billion dollar industry has put profits ahead of consumer safety and has put thousands of people at risk because of this insensitivity to disease.
The gruesome and macabre allegations against embattled tissue processors Biomedical Tissue Services continue to mount. In scenes more fitting for a gothic horror story, Michael Mastromarino and his cohort of ghouls illegally scavenged bone grafts, skin, heart valves, and tendons from corpses without consent of next of kin, and also stole tissues potentially tainted with jaundice, Hepatitis A, B, and C, HIV, and AIDS. These tissues were then passed off as healthy and viable for transplant, and distributed to Blood and Tissue Center of Central Texas, Tutogen Medical, Regeneration Technologies, Lost Mountain Tissue Bank, and Life Cell Corporation tissue banks.
Among the charges against Michael Mastromarino and Biomedical Tissue Services are forging death certificates, creating false documentation of disease screening, and perhaps most shocking, replacing stolen bones with PVC pipes and stuffing body cavities with surgical gloves in order to create the appearance of a normal body during open casket funerals. BTS was eventually caught in their web of lies when officials began investigating claims that the company falsified their screening documents and refused access to infectious disease testing records. There were potentially 25,000 tainted tissue samples distributed among the 50 states between June 2002 and October 2005.
The deplorable actions of now defunct Biomedical Tissue Service have potentially endangered thousands of people, and the list of patients who received the infected body parts continues to grow. The companies that unknowingly bought potentially contaminated tissues also must bear some responsibility for this dangerous disregard for consumer safety. If you are a victim of the tainted tissue scandal or if you believe that one of your lost loved ones was illegally and inhumanely harvested for tissues, make sure to contact an experienced tainted tissue attorney as soon as possible, so that you can fight for the vindication that you deserve.
