Patients Nationwide May Have Received Stolen Tissue

The Associated Press ^ | January 25, 2006 | AP

[Westlander]

Patricia Battisti had thought her back surgery in early 2005 was routine. A letter from her hospital nearly a year later made it clear she was wrong.

Battisti was informed that the cadaver bone that was implanted in her back may have been infected with various viruses -- the result of what investigators say was a large-scale scheme in which corpses were cut up and body parts illegally sold.

[Westlander]

'...I've got you under my skin...'

[dead]

Somebody implanted Babe Ruth's belly on me when I wasn't looking.

[dead]

The Long Island woman now claims she contracted syphilis from the bone and plans to sue…."I just want answers," said Battisti, 41, a single mother of four.

Got it from the bone, I have no doubt.

[FreedomFarmer]

[camle]

if you could buy and sell body parts legally, there would be no need for these types of practices.

[fatnotlazy]

Ah yes, let's sue. Sue, sue, sue.

[subterfuge]

if you could buy and sell body parts legally, there would be no need for these types of practices.

Hey, have you got any dead family members who would be willing to sell their spleen?

[Blood of Tyrants]

If you buy and sell body parts legally, there would be even MORE people paying off funeral directors.

[atomicpossum]

So who in the system is buying up tissue? There's got to be a 'fence' for the goods.

[Tijeras_Slim]

I think Yul Brenner is the previous owner of my scalp.

[ivyleaguebrat]

You beat me.

[camle]

if you sell body parts legally, then more people would consent to organ donation via the usual channels. the risk/benefit/need equation will become balanced to legitimacy, rendering illegal methods less desireable and they will dry up.

kinda like buying homemade rotgut when you can go to the packy and get real booze cheaper.

[dmz]

So, what, in your view, is the appropriate remedy in a case such as this?

[El Gato]

This is one Science Fiction prediction I'd have been just as glad to have been wrong. Organleggers! At least one source indicates that Larry Niven was the first to use the term, but the concept is much older (Think Frankenstein)

[El Gato]

So, what, in your view, is the appropriate remedy in a case such as this?

The same as Niven's in The Jigsaw Man turn the organleggers into involuntary organ donors, all of their organs that is, except the brain.