County Orders ID Tests on Dead Infant’s Tissue

In an attempt to avoid exhuming the body of an infant whose disputed identity is a central issue in a medical malpractice lawsuit, the Los Angeles County Counsel’s Office has ordered genetic tests on the infant’s preserved tissues.

An attorney for Patricia Chavez, who has sued the county, had said earlier this week that she would have the baby exhumed and DNA tests performed to prove the dead child was her son. The attorney said the tests would disprove the county’s contention that the child that died on Feb. 5, 1990, was not the child Chavez gave birth to five days earlier at the county-owned Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar.

Chavez contends that the child died of a birth defect that county doctors failed to notice. County attorneys have responded that they suspect her of substituting someone else’s sickly infant.