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I have dedicated my law practice for the last 25 years to the wrongfully injured and their families. The purpose of this blog is not to provide legal advice. If you need legal help you can contact me at cplacitella@cprlaw.com or visit our website at www.cprlaw.com. Thank You

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Body parts mystery remains for Masterpiece Theatre host: "Body parts mystery remains for Masterpiece Theatre host

By ADAM GOLDMAN
Associated Press
NEW YORK -- After Masterpiece Theatre host Alistair Cooke died, errors in the medical records accompanying his body fell through the cracks, one by one.
His name was misspelled. His birthdate was off by 10 years. His Social Security number wasn't even close. The name of his doctor, contact information for a relative, the time and cause of his death: all wrong.
None of that prevented the removal and sale of the 95-year-old's arms and legs. The fate of his pelvis and other tissue remains a mystery.
The medical records, obtained by The Associated Press, provide the most in-depth look so far into the case of the famed TV personality, and raise more questions about the safety of the cadaver tissue industry: Why didn't the tissue processor that acquired Cooke's body parts catch any of the bogus entries?
For Susan Cooke Kittredge, the celebrity's daughter, the deception destroyed her trust.
'It's deeply disturbing,' she said. 'It throws out any kind of faith I had in the system. It's so broken. It's horrible to me that this wasn't caught.'
Where Kittredge's name might have appeared on the records, there is instead a bogus name and phone number for a family member who supposedly agreed to donate her father's body parts for tissue transplants.
Donated cadaver tissue is used in more than a million procedures a year in the United States to repair bad backs, fix ailing knees and replace heart valves. Most of these operations are safe and do tremendous good, but tissue that has not been treated properly or is taken from unscreened donors can infect a patient with hepatitis, HIV and other potentially deadly infections.
Tissue processor "

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