Biomedical Tissue (Human Tissue)
January 09, 2007
Tissue Harvesting
Famed forensic anthropologist Dr. William Bass, whose work at the University of Tennessee and its Body Farm is one of the world's leading experts on what happens to the dead. Bass says that the practice of illegal tissue harvesting is very real and very frightening.
Posted by Michael Monheit at 02:51 PM | Permalink
December 13, 2006
Senate raises penalty for body part theft
Prompted by an ongoing investigation into a ring that allegedly stole body parts of more than 1,000 corpses, the New Jersey state Senate approved a bill yesterday making it a first-degree crime to trade in human remains against the wishes of the deceased.
No charges have been filed in New Jersey against Mastromarino, who has denied any wrongdoing in the case brought by the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office. He contends funeral parlor directors were responsible for getting consent for body-part donations.
The stolen body parts sold to five commercial tissue processors for use in thousands of transplant patients from Vermont to California, without obtaining families' permission or testing for disease.
Posted by Michael Monheit at 06:30 AM | Permalink
November 20, 2006
Stealing from the Dead
Indianapolis businessman Robert Nelms owns Memory Gardens. He operates more than a dozen funeral homes. Four of them are in Indiana, including Forest Lawn in Greenwood.
But it's the New York funeral home he bought in late 2003 that made national headlines. Nelms said that he had no prior knowledge about the bone and tissue harvesting taking place in the Daniel George and Sons Funeral home in the quiet working class Bensonhurst neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Posted by Michael Monheit at 09:49 AM | Permalink
November 01, 2006
Human Tissue Recall
You’ve heard about spinach and toys and cars being recalled but human tissue? Every year there are approximately one and a half million new surgical procedures known as allografts. An allograft is surgical transfers of bone, skin, tendons, teeth in which tissues from cadavers are transplanted into patients.
Recently, the New Jersey tissue company known as Biomedical Tissue Services was criminally indicted for illegally harvesting human tissue from corpses. As a result, patients (victims) throughout the country have received recall notices from the FDA and/or their medical providers informing them that they may have received illegally harvested body parts as tissue transplants that misrepresented the age/health of the donor and did not test for disease. (Sacramento)
Have you received stolen body parts and illegally processed bone and tissue implants? Contact us for a free and confidential legal consultation.
Posted by Michael Monheit at 04:38 AM | Permalink
Actions Taken Against Biomedical Tissue Services and its Employees
According to the charges filed against Biomedical Tissue Services and its employees, more than 1,000 corpses were harvested from area funeral homes. Forging consent documents, death certificates, and concealing disease and substance abuse were among the allegations, including the almost archaic charges of body stealing and opening graves. (Read More)
Posted by Michael Monheit at 04:36 AM | Permalink
