Booming Industry in Human Organ Donations

June 14, 2006

The sale of human tissue is a lucrative industry. Thanks to modern medicine, the demand for body parts has grown into a billion dollar market. But, it's creating ethical issues across the board.

Wednesday, for example, a senior government researcher refused to testify before Congress. He is accused of allegedly profiting from sharing human tissue samples with a drug company.

But problems with donations also arise from concerns over the proper storage of body parts.

The booming industry of organ and tissue donation has produced scandalous cases of fraud and malpractice. And considering the nature of the business, deception can be deadly.

Ken Richardson is the director of the Nevada Donor Network. He says that the case of biological tissue services, or BTS, is a tragic example of a faulty system.

The New Jersey-based company allegedly committed fraud by falsifying consent forms and medical records. They've been accused of distributing diseased tissue that would normally be unacceptable for transplantation. As a result, a healthy patient died after receiving cartilage that came from an improperly stored cadaver.

Ken Richardson said, "I think that one of the problems that we have, clearly illustrated by this, is there's a hole in our regulatory structure and our oversight. And one way to start to plug that hole is to insist that all tissue banks at the very minimum be AATB accredited."

Accreditation by the AATB, or American Association of Tissue Banks, is costly but voluntary. AATB or other certified inspections of donor facilities help to insure quality control. This includes measures such as donor identification and evaluation, and the proper storage and care of organs and tissue.

Ken Richardson said, "And I believe in this case, the deceased was not refrigerated for maybe 19 hours after cardiac standstill. For us, that would have been an automatic rule out. We would not have been able to accept that patient as a tissue donor."

Richardson says that accountability should rest not only with donor networks, but also with hospitals and surgeons in at least knowing the accreditation status of a donor organization.

He says that incidents like the BTS scandal are uncommon. At the same time, an organ or tissue transplant is never without inherent risk.

Ken Richardson further commented, "No matter what you do, there's an irreducible level of risk that's involved in any medical procedure. All we can do is try to make sure that we cover all the bases that we know about."

Visit the American Association of Tissue Banks online for more information about safety issues.

Email Eye on Health medical producer Rick Andrews at randrews@klastv.com

This article posted July 16, 2006.

Booming Industry in Human Organ Donations

Transplant News