10 local patients warned that they may have gotten tainted tissue Posted on Fri, Mar. 17, 2006 10 local patients warned that they may have gotten tainted tissue By MARY FLANNERY & KITTY CAPARELLA TEN PATIENTS FROM three Philadelphia university hospitals have learned they received potentially tainted human tissue in recent surgeries, hospital spokespeople said. The patients from Jefferson, Hahnemann and Temple - as well as thousands nationwide - face testing for HIV, hepatitis B and C, syphilis and other diseases as part of the fallout from a macabre body-snatching ring. The owner of defunct Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J., his business partner and two tissue recovery workers were charged last month by the Brooklyn District Attorney with harvesting cadaver body parts without family permission, without screening for disease, and under unsanitary conditions. All four have pleaded not guilty. Biomedical bought the body parts from funeral homes in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia, prosecutors said. Biomedical sold tissue to five tissue banks that, in turn, sold it either to an intermediary or directly to the hospitals. The Daily News reported yesterday that the Louis Garzone Funeral Home, on East Somerset Street in Kensington, allegedly supplied body parts to Biomedical during late 2004. Owner Louis Garzone had no comment on the Daily News report. As patients learn they might have received diseased tissue, they are filing lawsuits across the nation against Biomedical and the tissue banks. Tammy Courtney, 39, had four cervical discs removed and a bone graft implanted in her neck in September at York (Pa.) Hospital. She received a telephone call in January from her neurosurgeon alerting her that the marrow was possibly diseased. "I was bawling my eyes out," said Courtney, of York. "My nerves are a wreck. I could have one of these diseases." A 52-year-old South Jersey patient has been tested once for diseases that may have been present in material used in his spinal surgery. "I don't know how many more times my blood needs to be tested," said the man, who asked that his name be withheld so his employer doesn't learn of his situation. "My biggest concern is that if the bones I got were taken from cancer patients, how long does cancer live in bone marrow? It's on my mind every day." The Food and Drug Administration, which shut down Biomedical last month, said it believes the infection risk is low. However, the FDA has not said whether any patients have ailments that might be linked with suspect tissue. The possibly tainted tissue was implanted into patients from early 2004 through September 2005, according to the FDA. The federal agency is still investigating how many people received tissue procured by Biomedical. Legally donated tissue is harvested under sterile conditions. Donors are eliminated because of infections, malignancies, autoimmune diseases, drug abuse and other high risk behaviors. Surgeons at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital used skin tissue for abdominal surgeries on eight patients and a surgeon at Temple University Hospital used bone material in a spinal fusion. In both cases, the materials came from LifeCell Corp. of Branchburg, N.J., one of the five tissue banks supplied by Biomedical. Tenet, which owns five hospitals in the region, said only Hahnemann bought tissue procured from Biomedical. The tissue was used in a hernia repair, said spokeswoman Carol Britton. She did not know which tissue bank supplied the material. Neither the University of Pennsylvania Health System nor Main Line Health has been notified that they had received tissue procured by Biomedical, spokeswomen said. "The entire procedure of accepting donors was grossly flawed," said plaintiff attorney Ronald Motley, of South Carolina, who is working with Cohen, Placitella and Roth, of Philadelphia. These tissue suppliers "were supposed to vouch for the donor and eliminate the risk of disease. "Doctors are very upset themselves, thinking they put in good tissue," he added. Most hospitals buy tissue - which includes human bone, skin, and tendons - from more than one tissue bank. In general, one bone donor can provide transplants for at least 40 people. But many donated body parts ultimately are rejected once the tissue bank investigates the donor's health history. Biomedical harvested parts from 1,077 corpses, prosecutors said. Owner Michael Mastromarino allegedly pocketed up to $7,000 per dissected body. Mastromarino's lawyer, Mario Gallucci, said his client relied on funeral homes to screen the bodies for disease and to get next-of-kin approval for removing body parts. Gallucci denied that Biomedical had used pricing of its tissue parts as a strategy to sell to tissue banks. "The price is set by the industry," Gallucci said. "You can't make it cheaper or more expensive. It is a not-for-profit business." However, Bob Rigney, with the American Association of Tissue Banks refuted Gallucci's assertion. "We have no fee schedule - real, imagined or implied," Rigney said. Plaintiff attorney Andrew J. D'Arcy, of South Jersey, said another reason besides low price may be why Biomedical had been an attractive supplier to tissue banks. "The thing that this guy [owner Michael Mastromarino] had, if allegations are proven true, that the legitimate recovery services didn't have was this - he had quantity," said D'Arcy. Initial blood tests on Courtney, the woman who underwent surgery at York Hospital, were negative, but she is still worried. She needs another battery of tests to determine if there are dormant infections, said her attorney, Kevin Dean, with the Motley Rice law firm in South Carolina. © 2006 Philadelphia Daily News and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.philly.com