Implant Patients Informed of Possible Contamination

Flipping through a stack of Christmas cards and catalogs last week, Patricia Battisti came across a letter from the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, the hospital where she underwent surgery in January, but with so many holiday solicitations, she said, she almost set it aside.

Almost a year after doctors implanted human bone in Battisti’s back to alleviate pain from a 2003 car accident, the single mother of four learned that her doctor had unwittingly used potentially contaminated body parts.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Battisti, 41, of Franklin Square. “I’m so scared for myself.”

Dated Dec. 8, the letter said the hospital had indirectly received human bone, skin and tendons from BioMedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J., which may not have properly screened them for infectious diseases.

“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes the overall risk of infection is low, but is encouraging patients to have their blood tested for HIV, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis,” the letter said.

Battisti was one of 42 patients who got the letter. All underwent implant surgery at one of three of the system’s Long Island hospitals between May 2002 and October 2005, said spokesman Terry Lynam.

But health officials have said that tens of thousands of people across the country, and possibly more on Long Island, might have been exposed by untested parts from BioMedical.

Battisti’s attorney, Jeffrey Lisabeth of Mineola, said he was preparing to sue the Long Island health system and BioMedical. It’s inexcusable that the hospitals weren’t more careful and only sent a form letter to contact patients, he said.

“They just delivered a potential death sentence,” he said.

But Lynam said the hospitals were not to blame. They were notified in October by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that BioMedical was accused of illegally buying body parts from a Brooklyn funeral home.

BioMedical is being sued by two New York families who say a relative’s body parts were stolen from the grave and sold to the New Jersey company, said their attorney, Sanford Rubenstein of Brooklyn.

“It was not the intention of the decedents to give body parts,” he said. “And no one ever asked the families.”

Relatives of Masterpiece Theatre host Alistair Cooke, who died last year, also alleged that Cooke’s body parts were stolen and sold to BioMedical Tissue Services.

No one could be reached when contacted last week at the company, and its attorney did not return a call for comment. Spokesmen for the FDA and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said they were investigating BioMedical but declined to comment further.

Many of the parts used on Long Island were purchased from BioMedical by a Florida tissue bank responsible for testing and sterilizing every body part it buys.

After hearing about the accusations against BioMedical, Dr. Sebastian Lattuga, who operated on Battisti and others on Long Island, said he called the tissue bank to make sure proper procedures were followed.

He then telephoned each of his patients and sent a letter to every patient he could not reach. Lattuga said he tried two different numbers for Battisti, but both were disconnected.

Battisti said the hospital should have tried harder. “What if I didn’t open the letter?”