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Four More Patients Get Tissue Alerts

Fifteen people are now known to have had potentially tainted implants allegedly taken from corpses.

BY JOHN SULLIVAN
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Four more Philadelphia area patients may have gotten tainted bone and tissue from a Fort Lee, N.J., company that allegedly stole body parts from corpses.

A spokesman for Albert Einstein Medical Center said yesterday that several patients there had received donor tissue recently recalled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because it had not been tested for diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C.

Thousands of patients across the country may have received tainted tissue and bone from the same company, authorities have said. The FDA is urging patients who got tainted parts to get tested for various diseases.

The disclosure yesterday brings to 15 the known number of cases in which Philadelphia hospitals implanted into patients potentially tainted bone and tissue from the Fort Lee firm.

Last week, officials at three area hospitals - Jefferson, Hahnemann and Temple - announced that 10 patients may have received tainted tissue. Last month, a Northeast Philadelphia woman, Darlene Krzywicki, 42, said she contracted hepatitis C from transplanted bone marrow. It is unclear how many patients in Philadelphia have been affected, but the number appears to be small, area hospitals say.

"I'm not aware of other hospitals in our area where this has occurred, but I assure you that given what has come to light with this firm, they are all looking very carefully at the tissue they receive," said Andrew Wigglesworth, president of the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council, an association of area hospitals.

"As tragic as this case is, it is an aberration in our experience."

Einstein said it purchased the tissue from Tutogen Medical Inc., of West Paterson, N.J., which bought the material from Biomedical Tissue Services, a defunct tissue-harvesting company based in Fort Lee, N.J. The firm allegedly harvested bones and tissue from corpses without permission and without following blood-testing procedures that guarantee bodies do not harbor communicable diseases.

The company's owner, Michael Mastromarino and three associates have been charged with 122 criminal counts alleging they bought body parts from funeral homes without the consent of families.

Einstein spokesman Steve Gary said the hospital has followed all federal recommendations by notifying those patients who received the Tutogen products.

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