Vials of AIDS Blood Samples Left Unlocked Before Theft

AIDS virus blood samples stolen from a Van Nuys testing firm over the weekend had been left outside the laboratory for a courier and were unsecured because a locking device was not working, Los Angeles police said Tuesday.

Police said the door at ICS Home Health Services, in the 14900 block of Oxnard Street, was equipped with a device that could lock down the cooler holding the blood, which was from patients who tested positive for AIDS. The cooler could be released by a courier with a key. But the device was inoperative and Friday evening, the cooler was left “readily accessible to the public,” police said.

“The latch was not used,” Detective Mel Arnold said. “The cooler was loose.”

The green-and-white Igloo cooler--large enough to hold a six-pack of drinks--apparently remained untended and undisturbed until at least Saturday night, the last time witnesses saw it.

The cooler held six glass vials of blood taken from patients previously diagnosed as carrying the HIV virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome, Lt. Fred Nixon said. The vials were to be further analyzed at a laboratory that ICS had contracted with to do AIDS testing.

The cooler carried no warnings about its contents. Its theft was discovered Monday when ICS officials learned from the courier that the cooler had not been picked up, police said.

Investigators believe that someone who wanted the cooler probably took it and dumped the four-inch-long vials of blood, not realizing where the blood came from.

“Obviously there is some concern for where it was dumped,” Arnold said. “We haven’t found it.”

State and Los Angeles County health authorities were alerted about the blood theft, officials said. Toby Staheli, spokeswoman for the county Department of Health Services, said the agency will check ICS’ handling of the blood but added that apparently no laws or codes govern procedures for shipping blood samples by courier.

Ruth Sawada, ICS pharmacy manager, said that leaving the cooler untended and outside for the courier is routine in the blood-testing industry.

“We deal with patients that need laboratory work done,” she said. Blood samples are left “in a manner that the laboratory can procure it. It is an industry standard.”

Sawada declined further comment on the procedure and on why the locking device was not used on the cooler. According to police reports, parts on the L-shaped latch device did not fit on the cooler properly.

Lawrence Mack, assistant clinic director of Edelman Health Center in Hollywood, which does more AIDS testing than any other clinic in Southern California, agreed that ICS used accepted procedures with the cooler.

‘Standard Practice’

“It is a standard practice to leave containers out for couriers to pick up if the pickup is to be done after hours,” Mack said.

However, Mack said, Edelman Health Center does not follow that standard. Instead, clinic employees personally hand blood shipments to lab couriers. “We are dealing with blood that is contaminated,” he said. “We don’t want anything to happen to our blood samples.”

Dr. John Ward, a medical epidemiologist with the AIDS program at the national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, said the stolen blood would be dangerous only if it contaminated someone’s bloodstream through injection or a wound.

“You could not use it as a poison in the sense of pouring it into something and having someone drink it,” Ward said. “The only way that the virus could infect someone else is if it is injected into them or it breaks the protective layer of the body,” such as through an open wound.

“The biggest risk might be for whomever stole it--if they broke one of the vials and cut themselves,” Ward added. “Or if they threw it somewhere and someone inadvertently cut themselves on the glass” from the vials.