Ex-Researcher at UCI Named in 1996 Lawsuit Over Autopsy

The doctor at the center of a UC Irvine cancer research scandal is accused in a Pennsylvania lawsuit of taking portions of a dead man’s brain without permission during a 1991 autopsy in Pittsburgh.

Dr. John C. Hiserodt and his then-boss, former Allegheny County Coroner Joshua A. Perper, allegedly sent the brain tissue to the University of Pittsburgh for research purposes, according to the suit filed in 1996.

The pathologists acted “outrageously,” the suit contends, because they “knew or deliberately disregarded” the fact that they didn’t have the family’s permission to dissect the brain of car-crash victim Kevin Ohm and ship the tissue to the university.

Hiserodt conducted the autopsy and determined that Ohm died of internal chest injuries, according to court papers.

Both doctors and the university, which also is a defendant, have filed papers denying any wrongdoing in the autopsy. The suit is pending in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

Hiserodt, Perper and university officials were unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Hiserodt worked at the Allegheny County coroner’s office before joining UCI Medical Center in Orange in 1993 as head of the autopsy division. Previously, he was a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, but left in 1989 after the university determined that he had falsified research data there.

The lawsuit filed by Ohm’s widow, Kathleen, of West Mifflin, Pa., isn’t the only legal action Hiserodt faced over his work as an assistant coroner. Last year, a coroner’s inquest in Pittsburgh found that he failed to determine that a 1992 death was a homicide.

After joining UCI in 1993, Hiserodt again found himself under scrutiny. His falsified research at Pittsburgh led federal authorities in 1994 to ban him from working on federally funded research for five years. UCI officials then had to warn him repeatedly to halt his research activities at a Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center laboratory.

Four internal UCI investigations from 1995 through 1997 determined that the cancer research laboratory where he had worked had engaged in unauthorized experiments and practices. It shut the lab down in December 1996.

Among other findings, the investigations determined that Hiserodt had improperly sent unauthorized experimental treatments to Florida in mid-1996 for use on a terminally ill 8-year-old girl.

Kathleen Ohm’s 1996 lawsuit followed a series of news stories in Pittsburgh about the coroner’s office providing researchers with 132 brain specimens from autopsies without first obtaining consent from relatives of the deceased.

Ohm’s attorney, Michael Seymour of Pittsburgh, would say only that he is still trying to determine the extent of Hiserodt’s involvement.

The news accounts about the coroner’s practices appeared in Pittsburgh in 1992. UCI officials said they weren’t sure if any of their department heads were aware of the stories or of Hiserodt’s possible involvement before hiring him.

UCI spokesman Tracy Childs said the only university official who may have been aware of Hiserodt’s work at the coroner’s office is Dr. Yutaka Kikkawa, who resigned last month as chairman of UCI’s pathology department.

Kikkawa, who hired Hiserodt, has been traveling this week and could not be reached for comment.

Kikkawa has said previously that he knew about Hiserodt being investigated for falsifying research data at Pittsburgh, but he said his own inquiry had found the claims to be more a product of internal politics.

However, in 1994, a year after UCI hired the researcher, the National Institutes of Health determined that the allegations were true and issued its five-year ban on Hiserodt.

At a news conference last month, UCI Chancellor Ralph Cicerone said that letters the university received about Hiserodt during the hiring process were “entirely positive.” None had mentioned the NIH investigation, and Kikkawa said he never told superiors about it.

One letter, the chancellor said, mentioned that Hiserodt had his “ups and downs at Pittsburgh” and that he’d had political problems with senior officials there.

Inquest Reversed Autopsy Finding

The special coroner’s inquest held in Pittsburgh last year found that Hiserodt failed in a 1992 autopsy to detect the real cause of death of 23-year-old Michelle Witherell of Monroeville, Pa.

Hiserodt had determined Witherell died from injuries sustained in a fall from her balcony, which jibed with the police view that she probably committed suicide.

However, the inquest, held at the insistence of Witherell’s parents, determined that she was beaten to death with a blunt instrument and did not topple from her third-floor apartment.

The case was reopened, and prosecutors say there is an active homicide investigation. Much of the original evidence was lost because of the failure of police and the coroner’s office to make the proper finding, said Ed Borkowski, and assistant Allegheny County district attorney.

“In fairness to [Hiserodt], there are different views on what happened with this young woman. I can’t say it was any kind of a screw-up,” said Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, who was elected Allegheny County coroner in 1995.

“There was a difference of opinion,” he said. “It happens all the time.”

Wecht and two other forensic pathologists reviewed Witherell’s autopsy at her parents’ request and determined that she was a victim of foul play. During the inquest, Hiserodt acknowledged that, after reviewing the autopsy records, Witherell’s injuries were not consistent with a fall.

Wecht was critical of the previous coroner, Perper, now the medical examiner in Broward County, Fla., for allowing the office to remove brain tissue during autopsies and allowing the material to be used in research experiments, both without family consent.

Perper’s actions were not illegal, but they were “not proper” or ethical, Wecht said. “He danced between the raindrops on this,” he said.

Still, Perper defended his actions in news accounts about the controversy in March 1992. He said then that he was not required to obtain consent because he has the legal authority to determine the cause and manner of suspicious deaths.

The brain tissue was used in a University of Pittsburgh study aimed at detecting evidence of abnormalities that could be linked to people prone to suicide, schizophrenia, depression or Alzheimer’s disease.

The research is continuing. However, the university’s medical center now requires its scientists to obtain family consent before using a deceased person’s organs or tissue in research, said university spokeswoman Jane Duffield.

UCI officials have said that Hiserodt now is the target of a criminal investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA and the NIH also are conducting regulatory investigations into the UCI cancer center lab where Hiserodt worked.

Last month, Cicerone acknowledged that the university failed to act on extensive evidence of wrongdoing at the cancer center lab. The wrongdoing included improper billing and improper solicitations for donations from cancer patients undergoing experimental treatments.