Posted on 01/07/2006 7:38:18 AM PST by Larousse2
Stolen Human Tissue
Stolen human tissue ends up in several mountain patients who went into the hospital for surgery.
The material was stolen from funeral homes in New York that removed bone and tissue from corpses without getting permission from families.
Now hospitals around the state are looking into whether any of their patients got the stolen tissue.
Officials at Mission Hospitals say 16 patients may have received some of the stolen tissue.
They believe that although the tissue may have been stolen it was still sterilized and tested for infectious diseases.
Mission Hospitals' Dr. Dale Fell says patients were contacted last November and told there might be a problem. Patients were told to contact their doctors immediately.
Organ donation advocates say many parts of the body can be used after death to give someone else life. They don't want stories like this to discourage donations. They want folks to decide whether they want to be organ donors and then share that decision with their families early.
Other hospitals are encouraging folks who may have received the tissue to get tested for HIV and hepatitis.
Mission Hospitals officials say they encouraged patients to see their physicians.
(posted at 9:33pm, 01/06/05)
It's icky, but I don't see what harm was done either to the dead people or the live one. Is there evidence that someone suffered here?
Remember the rumors from years back that China was harvesting organs and such from their prison population? If you have millions jailed that come in with two kidneys, what's the harm in removing one for transplant? The "donor" can get by on the remainder. Same with one or both eyes, lungs, joints and ecetera.
Doesn't surprise me at all that a morgue or funeral home would do the same with a corpse. Plus the added cushion of "covering up" the evidence at both ends of the crime.
The article states that families of the deceased were not asked permission to take the tissue.
Yes, I understand that, and I assume it's against the law, fine, prosecute somebody ... but I have trouble getting worked up over it, unless someone was injured or infected.
The disease issue, possibly arising, scares the willys out of me.
The patients were notified to seek medical attention from their doctors. I saw the broadcast last night.
If they've caught something, then they definitely have a cause of action for a civil case.
I guess I'm just not that imaginative, sorry ... this doesn't distress me any more than tissue transfers from any other dead people.
Obviously, we're overdue for a re-make
of the classic cult movie: "Repo Man"
I understand that some of the decedents woke up in a tub full of ice, but didn't call 911 because they heard it was an urban legend.
I have to inspect that meatloaf my wife made yesterday....
LOL!
I think my aunt, "MouthOfSouth" used to speak highly of you.
She died two years ago this February.
I remember her...Very sorry for your (and collectively, our) loss.
Did anyone profit?
From what I have read of this, I think that clearly in the case of the theft and illicit use of tissue from Alistair Cooke that the recipients received unsuitable materials:
Cooke, the long time host of the U.S. public television show "Masterpiece Theater," and known for his Letter from America broadcasts for the BBC, died in New York in March 2004 from lung cancer. He was 95.
The use of cancerous bone for transplant violates Food and Drug Administration regulations and using body parts from the elderly is also against transplant protocol, the News said.
It said its sources said that paperwork uncovered in the investigation showed that Cooke's cause of death was changed to a heart attack and that his age was reported as 85.
"That people in need of healing should have received his body parts, considering his age and the fact that he was ill when he died, is as appalling to the family as is that his remains were violated," Cooke's daughter was quoted as saying.
That seems reasonable.
Apparently in the Alistair Cooke case (see my previous post for the article link), yes, there were tidy profits for the thieves:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The bones of the late broadcaster Alistair Cooke were stolen by a crime ring that snatched body parts to sell for transplant procedures, according to reports in two New York newspapers.
Citing sources close to an investigation by the Brooklyn district attorney's office, the Daily News said Cooke's bones were snatched before his cremation and sold for more than $7,000 (4,027 pounds) to two tissue processing companies.
OK. How do you "snatch" body parts from a dead person? Do you sneak into a funeral home in the middle of the night and help yourself? Do you do it with the knowledge of the funeral director? Then they're complicit.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.