Biomedical Tissue Services Lawsuit & News Blog

Scandalous Body Parts Lawsuit Going to Trial in Philadelphia

Thu, 1 May 2008 18:10:02 -0400

A class action suit was filed against funeral directors and others in Philadelphia by families of more than a thousand relatives who were dismembered and sold in a gruesome and illegal body parts scandal.

The people claim their relatives body parts were harvested without consent and defendants used forged documents.

Lawrence R. Cohen, attorney for Anapol Schwartz, the Philadelphia law firm filing the lawsuit, said that the scheme took tissue from 1,007 bodies, including 244 from Philadelphia funeral homes. Seven individuals and the funeral homes and human tissue services with which they worked are charged with conspiracy, negligence, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The defendants allegedly made $3.8 million from sale of body parts obtained in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey between February 2004 and September 2005 in an ghoulish illegal operation.

In all, the scheme took tissue from 1,007 bodies, including 244 from Philadelphia funeral homes.

Named in the body parts suit are Michael Mastromarino, Christopher Aldorasi, Lee Cruceta, Kevin Vickers, Gerald Garzone, his brother Louis Garzone and James McCafferty.

Five of the accused face criminal charges at a trial scheduled to start on September 2.

Business as Usual: Body Snatching, Body Harvesting

Tue, 8 Apr 2008 09:03:01 -0400

In what seems to be stranger than fiction but is actually appallingly true and affecting at least 244 dead bodies in Philadelphia and hundreds of living loved ones is the body snatching case that will go to trial later this year.

Philadelphia Attorney Larry Cohan, shareholder of Anapol Schwartz has been named by the U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, as lead counsel in a class-action lawsuit against all of the defendants in the criminal case as well as the tissue companies, representing so far 900 people nationwide. Along with Attorney Melissa Hague, Cohan is representing 15 families of the unwitting donors in their lawsuits in Philadelphia court.

Like a horror movie gone wrong, dead bodies awaiting cremation and embalming were rapidly cut and destroyed by sadistic body cutters extracting bones and tissues to be sold to human tissue processors to be reused in surgeries as life saving measures.

The culprits were funeral operators Louis Garzone, Gerald Garzone, partner James McCafferty Jr.; numerous cutters who dismembered bodies like butchers on speed, slashing arms and legs at their joints, stripping skin from bones, removing spines with power tools, cross-contaminating everything and everyone. Bodies routinely piled up without refrigeration waiting to be butchered; infections damned.
On forms forwarded to tissue processing companies, the cutters reinvented everything -- new identities, new death certificates, fabricating doctors and next of kin. It didn't matter that half of the people died from cancer, sepsis, HIV, or hepatitis. Everyone was a candidate for human tissue harvesting.

The mastermind behind the entire sickening plot was Michael Mastromarino of Ft. Lee, New Jersey and Lee Cruceta, his right-hand man.
Mastromarino lost his medical license in 2000 due to drug use but regrouped in 2002 by opening Biomedical Tissues Services, or BTS, a cadaver body-parts recovery company. He had knowledge of the business through his experience as a surgeon, when he sometimes transplanted human parts into his patients. While it's illegal in the U.S. to profit from organ and tissue donation, Mastromarino would exploit a loophole that allows companies to charge for handling" and "processing tissue and bone. Bones, skin, tendons, and other tissues are transplanted in operating rooms, in more than a million procedures annually.

With very little governmental oversight plus the extraordinary medical need for human tissue, Mastromarino operated his body-snatching enterprise without question. It was a matter of supply and demand. Mastromarino had the supply and the tissue processing plants had the demand. No questions asked.

But what is the crime? Theft and fraud, but is it criminal? Attorney Cohan has the testimony from witnesses to offer: A 41-year-old man who tested positive for HIV and hepatitis C after receiving BTS bone implants in surgery for degenerative disk disease. A 30-year-old Colorado woman who had to undergo a repeat ACL replacement after her first BTS tendon failed. A 74-year-old widow who received BTS bone for a lower-back surgery then developed syphilis.

http://www.phillymag.com/articles/body_snatchers/

Philadelphia Law Firm Handles Body Parts Civil Lawsuit Cases

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 13:04:38 -0400

As reported in the Philadedlphia Inquirer (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/20071005_Body-parts_case_generates_hundreds_of_civil_lawsuits.html), Larry Cohan, partner in Anapol Schwartz, a Philadelphia law firm, has about 200 clients, 130 of them have joined the ranks of civil litigation in a federal lawsuit of people who have been implanted with possibly tainted body parts pilfered from infected and illegally obtained cadavers. Experts believe that body parts taken from an infected cadaver can transmit disease and no cleaning process can render them completely safe.

The lawsuits all have generated from the criminal case against Michael Mastromarino and his now defunct company, Biomedical Tissues Services, of Fort Lee, N.J. Mastromarino lost his dental license over drug charges. He has been accused of selling body parts taken illegally from nine funeral homes in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia.
Lawyer to Mastromarino claims that his client was victimized by the funeral homes and that it was the funeral homes' responsibility to get consent from the deceases families. Three funeral home directors in Philadelphia were charged with being a part of the alleged scheme.

The total number of patients suing is unknown, but the federal Food and Drug Administration has said that as many as 13,000 patients could have received parts from Mastromarino's company.
Cohan says that Anapol Schwartz law firm has begun filing lawsuits on the donor side for the family members of the deceased, whose body parts were harvested without permission. Mastromarino has been accused of stealing from 1,077 bodies, which could mean hundreds more lawsuits are on the horizon.

Body-Parts Scandal: Anapol Schwartz Files Philadelphia Civil Complaint for Son of Local Woman Whose Corpse was Allegedly Illegally Harvested for Bone/Tissue Transplantation

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:22:45 -0400

Anapol Firm Files lawsuit for Body-Parts Scandal: Anapol Schwartz Files Philadelphia Civil Complaint for Son of Local Woman Whose Corpse was Allegedly Illegally Harvested for Bone/Tissue Transplantation. Read More.

FDA Scrutinized Companies Selling Human Tissues

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:25:33 -0400

The inspection blitz was prompted by two high-profile body parts scandals in 2006 when two companies that sold human tissue, bone, and other body parts were forced to close.

The FDA discovered one was using tissue from a North Carolina funeral home and another had used stolen bodies but had also shipped nearly 20,000 potentially contaminated body parts.
Biomedical Tissue Services of New Jersey is now facing court action trial along with a former New York funeral home director on charges that they stole bodies and unlawfully dissected them.

Seven funeral home directors have already pleaded guilty and tens of thousands of body parts removed by Biomedical Tissue Services have been recalled. As many as 10,000 people are believed to have received tissues from the company.

Such companies harvest a variety of human tissue, bone, ligaments, skin, and tendons from deceased donors that can be transplanted into patients.

The FDA inspected 153 companies and say they found no suggestion that patients might be at risk of transplants from contaminated or diseased cadavers.

The FDA were searching for widespread problems in tissue recovery after the cases last year revealed the two companies were not following procedures intended to prevent infectious disease transmission.
The FDA wanted to see if these cases were symptomatic and found they were not.

Tissue collection companies are usually inspected by the FDA every four years but the agency is now recommending more frequent inspections of every two years at some high-risk tissue establishments.

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=26223

FDA Says No Industry Wide Problems with Human Transplantation

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 10:52:43 -0400

June 12, 2007--The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today released a report that concludes there are no significant industry wide problems in the recovery of human tissues used for transplantation.
The report was issued by FDA's Human Tissue Task Force, an intra-agency group assembled in August 2006 to evaluate the effectiveness of FDA's tissue regulations.

The Human Tissue Task Force recommended targeted inspections of U.S. companies that recover human tissues - including tendons, ligaments, bone, and other musculoskeletal tissues. One goal was to look for more widespread problems in tissue recovery after FDA ordered two companies to cease manufacturing in 2006. FDA had found that these companies were not following procedures intended to prevent infectious disease transmission.

153 major human tissue recovery firms were inspected from October 2006 through March 2007. While some deviations from the regulations were identified, no major inaccuracies or deficiencies were found that could put tissue recipients at risk.

The task force report also made several recommendations on how to enhance FDA's tissue safety activities.

There are more than 2,000 active cell and tissue establishments registered with FDA. In fiscal year 2007, FDA intends to conduct 484 inspections. The task force recommends that all tissue establishments performing manufacturing steps considered to represent the highest potential risk for disease transmission be inspected every two years. It recommends that all others be inspected every three years.

Other task force recommendations include:

Increased education and outreach
Enhanced adverse reaction reporting and analysis
Regulations and guidance
Science of tissue safety

Source: http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01650.html

FDA Scrutinizes Companies Selling Body Parts

Thu, 7 Jun 2007 10:55:13 -0400

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=26223
An FDA investigation was prompted after two high-profile body parts scandals in 2006 when two companies that sold human tissue, bone and other body parts were forced to close. The FDA discovered one was using tissue from a North Carolina funeral home and another had used stolen bodies but had also shipped nearly 20,000 potentially contaminated body parts.

Biomedical Tissue Services of New Jersey is now facing court action trial along with a former New York funeral home director on charges that they stole bodies and unlawfully dissected them.

Seven funeral home directors have already pleaded guilty and tens of thousands of body parts removed by BTS have been recalled. As many as 10,000 people are believed to have received tissues from the company. Such companies harvest a variety of human tissue, bone, ligaments, skin, and tendons from deceased donors that can be transplanted into patients.

The FDA inspected 153 companies and say they found no suggestion that patients might be at risk of transplants from contaminated or diseased cadavers. The FDA were searching for widespread problems in tissue recovery after the cases last year revealed the two companies were not following procedures intended to prevent infectious disease transmission.

China bans trade in human organs

Thu, 10 May 2007 13:33:37 -0400

China has formally banned trading in human organs state media reported last week amid ongoing allegations that the nation is heavily involved in harvesting body parts from executed prisoners.

The regulations, issued by China's cabinet, prohibit all organizations and individuals from trading human organs in any form.

Any doctor found to be involved in such activities will have their licenses revoked, while clinics or hospitals will be suspended from doing organ transplant operations for at least three years.

Fines have been set at between eight to ten times the value of the outlawed trade and officials convicted of trading in human organs will be sacked and kicked out of the government.

International human rights groups have long accused China of harvesting organs from executed prisoners for transplant without the consent of the prisoner or his or her family. Hospitals have also been regularly accused of secretly taking organs from accident victims

The government has denied such charges, saying most organs are voluntarily donated by ordinary citizens and executed criminals who gave consent before their deaths.

Foreign patients facing a shortage of compatible organs in their home countries have flocked to China where organs are more plentiful and the surgical costs cheaper. China is the world's second largest performer of transplants after the United States.

Source: China bans trade in human organs - http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070502/hl_afp/healthchinatransplant_070502145531

One man's heart transplant inspires him to help others

Wed, 9 May 2007 13:31:57 -0400

One man's heart transplant inspires him to help others - http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070506/LIFE/705060330

Human tissue donation campaign begins

Wed, 9 May 2007 13:31:00 -0400

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070507/20070507005908.html?.v=1

NDRI, the nation's leading organization providing human biomaterials to research scientists announced the launch of a new national public relations campaign to let Americans know that they can donate tissue when planning surgery or at the birth of a child.

These tissues, which would otherwise be discarded, are urgently needed by researchers developing therapies and cures.

The non-profit NDRI (National Disease Research Interchange) was established in 1980 to provide scientists with the human tissue necessary to study human systems and human disease. In the past 20 years, NDRI has served some 5,000 scientists with more than 200,000 human biomaterials, leading to more than 2,500 papers published in scholarly journals on diseases from diabetes to cancer to HIV and rare diseases.

Most people think you can donate tissue or organs to science only after death, but the truth is that each of us has the power to impact science during our lifetime. Human tissue - whether healthy or diseased -- is precious to researchers developing cures for nearly every disease imaginable.

Americans can donate tissue by calling 1-877-221-NDRI when scheduling surgery or before the birth of a baby. NDRI manages the process, and there is no cost to the donor. Valuable tissue is donated from surgical procedures, such as plastic surgery, tumor surgery, hip or knee replacement, and transplant surgery. And at the birth of a child, the umbilical cord, placenta, and amniotic fluid are a rich, non-controversial source of stem cells for research into heart disease, cancer, and more.

In addition, the non-profit NDRI provides researchers not only with tissue but with de-identified medical history about the donor which provides unparalleled insight for scientists.