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Started by Devious Viper, September 12, 2006, 05:22:41 AM

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Potentially contaminated body parts stolen in the USA may have been implanted into British patients, a government agency says. Over 1,000 body parts were plundered by gangs in New York and then sold for transplants, it has been claimed.

Biomedical Tissue Services, the firm at the centre of the scandal, exported 77 body parts to the UK last year. NHS regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said it had alerted 20 NHS trusts.

Late last year, the US Food and Drug Administration ordered a recall of the potentially tainted products and warned that many patients could have been exposed to HIV and other diseases, but insisted the risk of infection was minimal. New York investigators say death certificates were doctored to make the dead out to have been younger and healthier than they actually were.

The tissue, in the form of skin, bone and tendons, was later sold for use in procedures like dental implants and hip replacements.Four people have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The body of veteran BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke, who died of cancer aged 95 in March 2004, was reported to have been caught up in the case.

A spokeswoman for the MHRA said: "It's not to say that the 77 body parts that were brought in came from stolen cadavers or were infected. But they did come from Biomedical Tissue Services and we alerted hospitals of this earlier in the year." She added it was up to individual doctors to decide what to do in regards to removing the implants or deciding it was less risk to leave them in.

The body parts were all pieces of bone which were grafted on to patients needing hip or jaw operations.

The MHRA would not say exactly where in the UK the imported parts were sent because the procedures were unusual enough that the patients involved could be identified.

And the spokeswoman added: "We would say any risk is minimum and this is just a precautionary measure."


Somke background history...


Four charged over US bones theft

US authorities have charged four men with looting bones and body parts from more than 1,000 corpses and selling them for medical transplants. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said the scam was "like something out of a cheap horror movie".

The body of BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke, who died aged 95 in 2004, was among those used in the racket. The lawyer for one of the suspects, former dentist Michael Mastromarino, said his client denied the charges. The indictment also names two of Mr Mastromarino's employers - Lee Crucetta and Christopher Aldorasi - as well as funeral home operator Joseph Nicelli as participants in the scheme.

Prosecutors say the defendants made millions of dollars from selling body parts harvested from corpses obtained from Mr Nicelli's funeral home. Death certificates and consent forms are alleged to have been doctored to make it appear the donations were legitimate. Stolen parts from Alistair Cooke, who died from cancer, were allegedly shown to have come from a healthy 85-year-old who died from a heart attack.

Prosecutors said the men discarded gloves, aprons and other items inside the stripped corpses before sewing them up.

They are also alleged to have replaced stolen bones with PVC piping.

"The amount of callousness here is incalculable," said Mr Hynes. "What happened here... is like something out of a cheap horror movie. But for the thousands of relatives of the deceased whose body parts were used for profit, and the recipients of the suspect parts, this was no bad movie. This was for real," he said.


both sourecd http://news.bbc.co.uk

Classic movie! 

While distasteful, I'm not upset by this.  I'm an organ donor, so when I'm dead they can harvest as much as they want.  (although not for food!)


ZRY
Your attitude is the only thing they can't take from you.

While not against transplant or the harvesting of useful body parts *with consent* I am against the way these guys operated - no consent, forging documentation and selling contaminated and potentially fatal diseased parts. All in pursuit of an easy $$$

It smacks less of the rise and more of the fall of a civilisation...


Quote from: Devious Viper on October 02, 2006, 01:04:33 AM
While not against transplant or the harvesting of useful body parts *with consent* I am against the way these guys operated - no consent, forging documentation and selling contaminated and potentially fatal diseased parts. All in pursuit of an easy $$$

It smacks less of the rise and more of the fall of a civilisation...



prude! *<:)
Your attitude is the only thing they can't take from you.