Scary story sheds light on the good deeds of organ donors

By CANDACE CHASE

The Daily Inter Lake

Jan Hendrix of the Northwest Tissue Center felt a sinking feeling as she read the recent Inter Lake story about a Lakeside man who received donor bone traced back to a stolen corpse.

As a regional supervisor of the tissue center, Hendrix worried that the story might discourage donations or frighten patients away from receiving the life-enhancing benefits of human donor tissue.

"It's a wonderful option," she said.

Because donated tissue shares more qualities with a patient's body, it provides many benefits over synthetics including faster healing, reduced infection rates, less pain and fewer blood transfusions.

Hendrix, a resident of Whitefish, said her second reaction to the story was that it was an opportunity to educate the public as well as medical community about for-profit vs. nonprofit tissue centers.

Northwest Tissue Center operates under the not-for-profit corporate structure.

"I've never questioned our motives or mission," she said.

The story which inspired Hendrix to contact the Inter Lake concerned Tom Adams, who received a letter saying the Food and Drug Administration had recalled bone he had received two years ago during back surgery performed in Missoula.

FDA officials issued the recall after discovering massive fraud in the records of Biomedical Tissue Services, a for-profit tissue procurer. The company sold tissue to a variety of processing businesses, which then marketed the sanitized tissues to hospitals for implant procedures.

The company's fraudulent practices were discovered after more than 25,000 tissue grafts went to health-care providers in 50 states and many foreign countries. A 122-count indictment alleged that Biomedical Tissue Services had falsified autopsy records and certificates of death.

Adams had received bone tissue from a body stolen from a morgue in Florida. Although the donor tissue went through sanitation, donor health records were missing or falsified.

As a result, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended tissue recipients get tested for HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis as a precaution. Adams had the tests and, so far, has a clean bill of health.

He shared his story to encourage other people to become fully informed when a surgeon recommends the use of donor tissue. Hendrix couldn't agree more.

"When that story came out, we had multiple calls," she said.

Patients were worried that tissue they had received from Northwest Tissue Center had come from Biomedical Tissue Services, but they were assured that the center handles all its own procurement.

"We also had calls from donor families," she said. "Had the tissue from their loved one been properly respected? It affected so many people."

According to Hendrix, the scandal underscores that not all organizations involved in tissue procurement are created equal. With increased competitiveness in tissue banking, the field includes for-profit businesses with less conservative standards.

In a recent newsletter, Northwest Tissue Center Director Margery Moogk said not all share the same respect for donor families or feel the same responsibility for patient safety.

"They rely too heavily on decontamination and testing and would have us believe practically anyone can donate tissue for transplant," Moogk said.

She said the Biomedical Tissue Services scandal shows the prospect of financial gain has led to "dangerous shortcuts, disrespectful abuses and fraud."

When working with Northwest Tissue Center, donor families need not fear that employees have a profit motive. Hendrix said the 18-year-old organization gives no bonuses or other financial incentives related to tissue procurement.

The center even offers to assist health-care providers evaluate alternative suppliers of transplant tissue.

"You should know more about your tissue supplier than mere marketing claims and attractive fee schedules," Moogk said in her director's message.

Hendrix said that Northwest Tissue Center only takes donors from this region, which includes Washington, the Idaho panhandle and Montana. The organization controls all steps from procurement to processing to distribution.

"That adds such a level of safety," she said.

Hendrix supervises a surgery team based in Missoula which recovers tissue for transplantation. Unlike some procurement organizations, Northwest always removes donor tissue under the sterile conditions of a hospital's operating room.

She said their recovery process allows families to still have open casket viewing by recovering skin only from the back and the back of the legs. Hendrix said she has had families offer to donate even when they assumed they were giving up viewing.

"You wonder at those times if you could be that gracious," she said, shaking her head in wonder.

Tissue, preserved by freezing, goes into quarantine while the staff completes an extensive research process to clear the donor's medical chart of all risk factors. Hendrix said it usually takes about 90 days before a donation enters processing.

"We're always referred to as ultra-conservative," she said. "We decline donors that others wouldn't."

Once cleared, a single donor may change the lives of up to 100 recipients with gifts of organs, skin, bone and corneas. Hendrix pointed to the case of the late Dustin Petersen, a Kalispell resident and student in the community college's X-ray technician program.

The 32-year-old man died in a car accident in November 2004. His family, including his mother Agnes and sister Lisa, decided to donate to help as many people as possible.

Through Northwest Tissue Center, his tissue gifts helped patients ranging in age from 16 to 81 who live in Washington, Idaho and Montana.

Bone grafts went to 10 patients with spinal trauma or degenerative conditions, five people with fractured arms or wrists that wouldn't heal and two patients with debilitating ankle and knee trauma.

Petersen's tendon donations went to eight men with torn anterior cruciate ligaments. His skin grafts helped two seriously burned people and one with a virulent skin infection. ("There's been a tremendous increase in the number of people needing skin grafts," Hendrix said. "That's a constant need.")

His cornea donations returned sight to two people. Three people's lives were saved by Petersen's kidney and liver donations.

Hendrix said that the Petersen family reflects a spirit of giving seen throughout Montana. The state has a higher than average consent rate for donation.

"There are so many wonderful stories," she said. "Donor families are exceptional people."

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com