Stolen Body Parts? Transplanted?

Just when I thought I could not be shocked anymore, this story pops up and shatters my brain. It just makes me shake my head in wonder and awe. Professor Jason was right on the money with his "contract issue" research on Organ Donation.

North Texan files suit over transplanted tissue

Consumers Are Unsettled by Reports of Stolen Transplant Tissue

by Jan Jarvis, Staff Writer, Ft. Worth Star Telegram 09/25/2007

When Jim Livingston received a call from his doctor to tell him that a bone implanted in his neck to relieve disk pain had been recalled, Livingston almost thought it was a joke. However, investigations have increasingly revealed that Livingston and others like him are carrying bones and tissue taken illegally from cadavers. Livingston has filed a lawsuit against parties that supplied the allegedly stolen bone.

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"How can you sell parts out of a body, just like parts from a stolen car?" he said.

New York authorities investigating the case believe Biomedical Tissue Services owner Michael Mastromarino started by striking deals with funeral directors to remove body parts from corpses without notifying their families or screening for disease. Then, in a secret room in a Brooklyn funeral home, he removed bones, tendons and heart valves, according to a spokesman for the Kings County district attorney's office in New York. The charges include a Class B felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Mastromarino is accused of doctoring death certificates and forging consent forms, according to the Kings County district attorney's office. Then, investigators believe, he replaced the bones with PVC pipe and sewed the incision so it would not be noticed at the funeral.

From there, the body parts were shipped to processing firms across the country. Once sterilized, they were implanted in patients from early 2004 to September 2005.

Click here to read the entire article.

Again, I am bowled over. What next?