Cingles Info

Woman Sues For Receiving Illegally Harvested Body Part
TALLAHASSEE, FLA---A Tallahassee woman has filed a lawsuit against Tutogen
Medical Inc. claiming that the material provided by the company for her bone
transplant had been illegally harvested from a corpse which hadn't been screened
for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Tutogen was one of five companies that received tissue and bone which
officials say was taken from cadavers at six funeral homes in New York, New
Jersey and Philadelphia.
Kay Phelps, 43, received a bone transplant to replace a bone in her face
and since her surgery, although she has tested negative for HIV, she says she
has undergone much anguish.
Class action status is being sought on behalf of all Floridians who might
have received such tissue which was sold to medical supply houses.
Michael Mastromarino, the owner of a New Jersey biomedical company and
three other men including Brooklyn embalmer Joseph Nicelli and two of
Mastromarino's employees, were allegedly involved a five year, multi-million
scheme during which human tissues were stolen without consent from thousands of
corpses before they were buried or cremated.
The cadavers were allegedly taken from unsuspecting New York funeral homes
and the bone and skin sold for transplants.
The four men have been indicted by a Brooklyn grand jury for participating
in a scheme to steal tissue from the corpses of people who never gave consent to
be donors. The tissue was then sold to tissue transplant companies where it
would be used in surgical procedures around the world.
According to the 122-count indictment, the team forged death certificates
and organ-donor consent forms to create the appearance that the tissue was
harvested legally. Though tissue transplant guidelines set age limits and health
requirements for donors, the defendants falsified the ages of their victims, so
in one case, a 95-year-old cancer victim was listed as a healthy 85-year-old who
died of heart failure.
It is illegal for people to sell their tissue or other body parts. They
can only be donated, and only with the expressed, written consent of the donor,
before the person dies. However, on the open market, one body can bring in as
much as $250,000 for harvesting and transplant companies.
Mastromarino, a former oral surgeon, got into the tissue business after
losing his dentist's license. Nicelli, of 49 Clifton Ave., Staten Island, owned
Daniel George & Son funeral home at 1852 Bath Ave., Brooklyn, before partnering
with Mastromarino in a tissue trading company, BioMedical Tissue Services and
BioTissue Technologies. The companies were licensed in New Jersey but had
offices in Brooklyn. Crucetta and Aldorasi both worked with Nicelli and
Mastromarino removing body parts.
The investigation began after people who bought Daniel George from Nicelli
found numerous inconsistencies in the bookkeeping. They came to the Brooklyn
District Attorney's Office to complain that money paid in advance for future
funerals was missing from the business's accounting records. The investigation
that followed uncovered a scheme to steal bones from unwilling donors.
In a secret room in Daniel George & Sons, Mastromarino would remove bones,
tendons, heart valves and other tissue from recently deceased people. When the
bodies were of people who had not consented to the procedures, or were too old
or ill to donate tissue, Mastromarino and Nicelli doctored their death
certificates and forged consent forms, according to the indictment. In those
cases, Mastromarino replaced the bones with plastic polyvinyl chloride, or PVC,
piping and repaired the incisions, so they would not be noticed at the funeral.
3-08-06
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/030806BodyPartsSue.html