For many, the horror of 'stolen parts in me'Friday, December 30, 2005
BY RUSSELL BEN-ALI AND KITTA MacPHERSON
Star-Ledger Staff
More than a year after an intricate operation on his spinal column, Gary Pieper woke up one Friday morning in November thinking about how great he felt. Thanksgiving wasn't far off, and 57-year-old construction worker figured he had had a good year.
The next day, Pieper's 2005 took a sudden bad turn.
The Mays Landing resident got a call from his neurosurgeon, Fernando Delasotta of Linwood, saying he was one of the many patients who had received a suspect body part, possibly from a diseased corpse.
"It's worse than the worst horror movie," Pieper said.
It's unclear how many people unknowingly received tainted tissue products, but yesterday the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark said it was joining the ongoing investigation by the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office into the alleged thefts of body parts and tissue from corpses. The probe centers on a Fort Lee tissue-procurement company called Biomedical Tissue Services.
Officials at BTS are under investigation for allegedly distributing bones and tissues without obtaining proper consent from relatives of the deceased. They are believed to have worked in concert with a number of funeral homes in the New York area. Five companies received body parts and tissue from BTS: LifeCell Corp. of Branchburg, and companies in Georgia, Florida and Texas. Those companies then distributed their products to hospitals and surgeons.
Pieper (pronounced "piper") injured his back in June 2004 while working on the Manalapan Bridge. He underwent surgery that September. Doctors inserted a piece of cadaver bone, polished and ground to the shape of a disc, into his spinal column, along with a titanium plate. The bone has since fused to one of his vertebrae.
"Now I feel like a robber, that I took something from someone," he said.
Pieper said he feels for the family members whose loved ones' corpses had been plundered and mutilated. He can understand how they may want all the missing parts returned. However, "I really can't give it back," he said.
"We are talking about some extremely ill people whose lives have been turned upside down for absolutely no reason," said Andrew D'Arcy, a Galloway attorney who is representing Pieper.
Pieper left his surgeon's office last month with a prescription for tests for HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis. So far, the tests have been negative. He doesn't fault the surgeon in the case. In fact, Pieper praises Delasotta as a "stand-up guy" who had the guts to properly inform his patients.
Delasotta did not return phone calls to his office yesterday.
Physicians are not required to contact patients, only recommended to do so, according to a news release from the federal Food and Drug Administration, which is looking into the case. This means there could be patients who have received collagen, skin grafts, bones and heart valves from BTS from early 2004 to September 2005 who have not heard about the scandal from their doctors.
"There are certainly thousands of people all over the country who don't know what has happened," said Kenneth Andres Jr., a Cherry Hill attorney who is representing one of the patients in the BTS case. "Out there right now, people have ticking time bombs and don't know it."
Julie Zawisza, a Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman, said, "FDA cannot comment except to say we are investigating this matter."
Anthony Vitola of Deptford said he will never forget entering Delasotta's office on a Saturday morning last month. The neurosurgeon's nurse looked solemn. Delasotta, normally jovial, looked more serious than ever.
Vitola said he was told something was wrong with the cadaver bone implanted in him during back surgery last summer. The bones were illegally harvested, he was told, and he was going to have to be tested -- repeatedly over the next few years -- for several infectious diseases.
"I have a bone in my body that was stolen from someone who didn't give permission," said Vitola, 52, a Conrail worker. "It could have been stolen from a child who was in an accident. It could have been taken from an IV drug user."
The surgery, made necessary by arthritic bone spurs pressing on his spinal column, was wildly successful, Vitola said. He had been "feeling fantastic" before the news.
Now everything has changed.
"I'm walking around with stolen parts in me," he said. "It's a tough thing."
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