Body Part Scandal In New York

NEW YORK -- 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.

The Long Island woman now claims she contracted syphilis from the bone and plans to sue. The hospital adamantly denies the allegation. But the case may be an early warning that the gruesome body parts scandal is going to lead to a lot of lawsuits. I just want answers," said Battisti, 41, a single mother of four. "I had the operation to feel better, not get sick."

Battisti joins a burgeoning list of potential victims. Authorities believe two men paid off funeral homes so they could take bone and skin from the dead without their families' knowledge. Worse, some body parts came from elderly people and perhaps victims of infectious diseases, and the paperwork was doctored to say they had been younger and healthier, investigators say. The Brooklyn district attorney's office has opened a criminal case focusing on scores of funeral homes in the New York City area and hundreds of looted bodies, including that of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke. No arrests have been made. At the same time, the Food and Drug Administration is trying to trace the tissue, which was sold to medical facilities across the country and in Canada.

Both the FDA and hospital officials, while suggesting certain patients should get tested for viruses as a precaution, insisted the risk of becoming ill from tainted tissue is minuscule. But some of those patients are not comforted, said Battisti's attorney, Jeffrey S. Lisabeth. "It really freaks them out," he said. Also disturbed are families who recently learned of evidence that their dead relatives were secretly carved up before being buried or cremated. A lawsuit filed in Brooklyn accuses a now-defunct New Jersey tissue bank, Biomedical Tissue Services, of stealing parts from a 43-year-old woman who died of ovarian cancer in 2003.

The business allegedly forged a signature on a consent form, and listed the cause of death as head trauma. Authorities also found paperwork indicating Cooke's bones had been removed by the tissue bank before he was cremated. Cooke died of cancer last year at 95, but authorities say documents listed the cause of death as heart attack and lowered his age to 85. The operators of the tissue bank have denied any wrongdoing.

Battisti's ordeal began in December, when North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System warned her and 41 other patients that they were at risk for HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis. The letters explained that tissue products used for surgical repairs came from body parts that were removed without permission or medical safeguards. Doctors implanted bone in Battisti's back to relieve pain from a car accident injury. Her lawyer said a recent blood test indicated she had been exposed to syphilis; she is awaiting the results of further tests.

The hospital's attorney, Anthony Sola, argued the tissue banks were responsible for screening and sterilizing their products, which arrive at hospitals ready for use in sealed containers. He also claimed anyone getting syphilis from a bone graft would be "a medical first."

Unfounded allegations, he warned, could "create undue fear in patients who need treatment." Both Lisabeth and the attorney who filed the lawsuit in Brooklyn said they have been contacted by other lawyers and possible victims nationwide. "The number of potential plaintiffs is virtually limitless," Lisabeth said.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.