Illegal Body Parts Scheme Likely to Set Off Lawsuits

By Brittany Golledge

Published on January 27, 2006

Patricia Battisti is one of 41 patients who received a letter last December from the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, warning that tissue parts used in their surgeries had been obtained from body parts that were not adequately screened or sterilized for disease, and may even have been obtained illegally from the dead without consent from their families.

Battisti underwent back surgery in early 2005 after a car accident injury and almost a year later, was informed by the Jewish Health System that she may be at risk for various viruses, including syphilis, HIV, and hepatitis. Battisti is the first patient to announce plans to sue after a recent blood test revealed that she was exposed to syphilis.

Authorities believe that the body parts scheme can be traced back to two men who allegedly paid off funeral homes to acquire bone and skin from corpses without consent from the families of the dead. According to investigators, paperwork submitted to tissue banks had also been doctored to indicate that the dead were healthier and younger.

Hospital representatives have called Battisti's allegations unfounded, denying the link between Battisti's syphilis and the cadaver bone and shifting responsibility to the tissue banks, which they allege are responsible for screening all products shipped to the hospital.

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