Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - The Michigan Daily - 7
Records reveal sordid
tale of harvested tissue
Masterpiece their f
sue Ser
Theatre host's medical which
papers deeply flawed this ye
of a n
NEW YORK (AP) - The med- ing the
ical records that accompanied the Michae
body of "Masterpiece Theatre" chief e
host Alistair Cooke were wrong Tissue
in just about every possible way. pare th
His name was misspelled. His others
birthdate was off by 10 years. His to be p
Social Security number wasn't The
even close. Also wrong were the istration
name of his doctor and the time Regene
and cause of his death. ensurin
There was even a bogus name comply,
and phone number for a family The
member who supposedly agreed to Regene
donate the 95-year-old celebrity's and le
body parts for tissue transplants. believe
The records, obtained by The were t
Associated Press, provide the most thousan
in-depth look so far into the case of eration.
the famed TV personality, and raise tissue w
more questions about the safety of not cleat
the cadaver tissue industry: Why sent.
didn't the tissue processor that Rege
acquired Cooke's body parts catch tissue
any of the bogus entries? about I
"It's deeply disturbing," said did win
Susan Cooke Kittredge, Cooke's Regener
daughter. "It throws out any kind compan
of faith I had in the system. It's In an
so broken. It's horrible to me that tion Ch
this wasn't caught." sent to
Donated cadaver tissue is used compan
in more than a million procedures "quality
a year in the United States to in this
repair bad backs, fix ailing knees vented
and replace heart valves. Most of designe
these operations are safe and do But i
tremendous good, but tissue that who di
has not been treated properly or fraud,
is taken from unscreened donors another
can infect a patient with hepatitis, receives
HIV and other potentially deadly Tissue.
infections. LifeC
Tissue processor Regeneration and th
Technologies Inc. of Alachua, which l
Fla., declined to discuss Cooke's the tissu
medical records but has said the raising
company did nothing wrong. the saf
The company says it relies on industr
the suppliers of cadaver tissue to Cour
"perform a risk assessment on eration
every potential donor, interview pieces
family members and evaluate the Tissue S
donor's medical records." "The'
In this case, Regeneration intentio
and four other processors put the aut
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aith in Biomedical Tis-
rvices of Fort Lee, N.J.,
was shut down earlier
ar and is at the center
ational scandal involv-
theft of cadaver tissue.
l Mastromarino, former
xecutive of Biomedical
Services, helped pre-
e records for Cooke and
whose bodies were sent
rocessed.
Food and Drug Admin-
n says companies like
ration are responsible for
g their business partners
with federal guidelines.
records for Cooke show
ration received the arms
gs. Previously, it was
d that only Cooke's legs
aken and provided for
ds of dollars to Regen-
Cooke's pelvis and other
mere also removed, but it's
ar where those parts were
seration says Cooke's
was never implanted, but
0,000 pieces from BTS
d up in people - landing
ration and several other
ies in civil court.
undated letter Regenera-
airman Brian Hutchison
Cooke's daughter, the
y said it performed many
control procedures, and
case our procedures pre-
distribution as they are
d to do."
t was a Colorado doctor
iscovered the suspected
notifying LifeCell Corp.,
tissue processor that
d parts from Biomedical
ell sounded the alarm
en informed the FDA,
ed to a voluntary recall of
ue nearly a year ago and
serious questions about
ety practices within the
Y.
I documents show Regen-
shipped a total of 19,446
of tissue that Biomedical
ervices provided.
y clearly did not have any
n of bothering to verify
ments," Kittredge said. "If they
had made one phone call to me
or this spurious doctor, it would
have been caught immediately."
Kittredge, who has not sued
any of the tissue processors
involved in the scandal, says
she never consented to have her
father's body parts donated -
despite that claim in her father's
records. The papers were signed
by Mastromarino and employee
Chris Aldorasi.
The documents say that a per-
son named "Susan Quint" of the
Bronx - identified as Cooke's
daughter - consented to giving
BTS the body parts. But Kit-
tredge is Cooke's only daughter,
and she lives in Vermont, where
she is a minister.
In addition, Cooke died of lung
cancer, but the records list his
cause of death as "cardiopulmo-
nary arrest." He was 95. BTS said
he was 85.
The FDA sets no age and few
health limits on donors, but some
tissue banks consider cancer a
disqualifying condition. It's not
known whether the disease can
spread to a recipient.
The time the body was recov-
ered was also fudged. Cooke died
just after midnight March 30,
2004, but BTS lists it as 6:45 a.m.
making the 9:30 p.m. recovery
time look shorter and the body
fresher and more suitable for pro-
cessing.
Mastromarino's lawyer said his
client didn't do anything wrong
and pinned the blame on New
York Mortuary Service, where
Cooke's tissue was recovered.
The mortuary service's funeral
director, Timothy O'Brien, has
already pleaded guilty for his
role in the scheme.
Aldorasi's lawyer says he can't
comment on the records because
he hasn't seen them.
Mastromarino, Aldorasi and
two other BTS employees were
charged in an indictment Febru-
ary in a Brooklyn court. All four
have pleaded not guilty to charg-
es of enterprise corruption, body
stealing and opening graves,
unlawful dissection, forgery and
RODRIGO GAYA/Daily
LSA sophomores Matt Lerner and Nick Farinella, founders of eatblue.com, an online ordering site for local
restaurants, pose at the New York Pizza Depot on South University Avenue yesterday.
WEBSITE
Continued from page 1
crash course in entrepreneurship.
Both Lerner, an English major, and
Farinella, who plans to concentrate,
in organizational studies, said they
would definitely consider continuing
Eat Blue as a career if it goes well.
"I love walking into restaurants,
talking to the owners, giving them
our sales pitch," Lerner said.
The founders said they are par-
ticularly excited about the online
ordering function of their site, which
was not available on U-Grub, and
which they say will eliminate order
mix-ups.
"(The U-Grub website) had 'No
online ordering. No hassle,' as if that
was, like, a good thing," Lerner said.
"It should be 'Online ordering, no
hassle."'
Any local restaurant can post a
menu on the website for free. Eat
Blue's revenues come from ad sales,
Lerner said.
Although sales are still slow, the
students said they expect them to
increase as the website gains popu-
larity.
Theyhopetomakeabout$100,000
in ad sales by the end of the spring.
In the first two weeks of opera-
tion, Eat Blue has received about
1,200 hits, Farinella said. Advertis-
ing online is better for businesses
than advertising in a newspaper
or magazine, Lerner said, because
it targets students who are hun-
gry and looking for food at that
moment.
Tim Wojcik, owner of Mr.
Spots on South State Street, said
his restaurant has received a large
response since online ordering
became available last week. Mr.
Spots gets about 15 orders a night
from the website.
The founders each spend about
20 to 25 hours a week building the
website, advertising to students and
talking to restaurateurs.
"Our wholejob is to be in constant
contact with our restaurants" Lerner
said. "Every restaurant owner has
my personal cell phone number."
The next goal is expanding Eat
Bluetoencompass allofAnnArbor's
more than 300 restaurants.
"We don't want people to come
to the site just to order online" said
Lerner. "We want to be the premier
restaurant website."
Business School senior Denise
Wang said she prefers ordering
online because the website displays
the entire menu and it is easy to
choose.
Not everyone agrees.
Online delivery ordering sites are
useful for looking up menus, LSA
senior Kari Mar said, but she would
still prefer to call in her order by
phone.
"I think it's easier. I'm used to
doing it" Mar said. "You actually get
to talk to the person, so if you want
you can emphasize things like no
mushrooms or something."
guage and then decide. This is a
much more complicated process,
and voters frequently misunder-
stand the ballot language, Greb-
ner said.
"If you conduct a poll on
the MCRI, you are measuring
something - but it is not what
is going to happen on Election
Day," he said.
Pollsters seeking an accurate
measurement must recreate the
voting experience as much as
possible, he said.
"Voters need to be confused
and rushed," Grebner said. "You
need to let people be as bigoted
as they really are."
734.996.2861
TESTGURU.COM
POLLS
Continued from page 1
Court largely upheld the Uni-
versity's affirmative action pro-
grams in 2003.
"For the past year, opponents
of the MCRI have been casting
it as a proposal that hurts every-
one, especially women," Sarpo-
lus said. "But if Ward Connerly
can turn it back into a black ver-
sus white issue, like he did in
Washington and California, it
will pass."
A reluctance to be candid with
a pollster is not the only issue
complicating polling on MCRI.
Grebner, who has been study-
ing ballot proposals for two
decades, asserts that it is simply
impossible to accurately poll
ballot proposals.
"Polls on ballot initiatives are
routinely off by nearly 30 per-
cent," Grebner said. "It is simply
not useful to talk about a margin
of error because they are so inac-
curate."
Ballot proposal polls are
fundamentally different from
candidate polls because ballot
proposals don't just ask voters
to pick a person, they require a
voter to interpret the ballot lan-
Rich Klarman's street cred:
- Perfect 180 on LSAT
- Michigan Law grad (3.85 gpa)
- Licensed attorney
- 14 years of teaching experience
- Hundreds of delighted students
YAF
Continued from page 1
plans.
"I think it's unfortunate that they
would treat such a serious issue like
immigration in this light" Scott
said. "It's very sensational and
doesn't lend itself to open dialogue
in the way it should."
But Boyd said the shock value is
necessary.
"I think the game may attract a
lot of people that just an ordinary
speaker may not attract," he said.
"I think as many people need to be
educated about this as possible."
Playing "Catch an Illegal Immi-
grant" isn't a new idea.
The Young Conservatives of
Texas played the game at the Uni-
versity of North Texas in Denton
last spring. But campus outcry put
a stop to similar plans at Penn State
University and the University of
Texas at Austin.
The University chapter of YAF
will have help playing the game
from its counterpart at Michigan
State University.
"We're definitely helping out,"
MSU YAF Chair Kyle Bristow said.
Bristow plans to repeat the event
at MSU. Like Boyd, he said the
controversy generated by playing
Catch an Illegal Immigrant will
draw much-needed attention to the
effects of illegal immigration.
"It's a game that the U.S. govern-
ment needs to play about 13 million
times;' Bristow said.
Bristow had another idea, but
said it would be unrealistic.
"The only thing more effective
would be if U of M YAF and MSU
YAF were to drive down to the
border and start building the wall
ourselves:" Bristow said. "But that
would be a lot of work."
Alicia Benavides, chair of La
Voz Latina, a Latino advocacy
group, said she disagrees with the
notion that the game will create a
dialogue.
"It doesn't help anything:' she
said. "It classifies (illegal immi-
grants) as objects, not actual people.
It makes them like the other, like
outsiders, not like human beings"
Benavides said La Voz Latina
will probably schedule activities of
its own while students play Catch an
Illegal Immigrant.
"We'll probably do an educa-
tional event and try to explain to
people why this is hurtful and hold
a productive dialogue about immi-
gration:' she said.
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Continued from page 1
"We don't care if you party all
night unless it interferes with oth-
ers' rights to peace and quiet:' said
Dresleski.
The Ann Arbor police now chart
noise violations by address - instead
of by person receiving the violation
- and the price of the ticket goes up
with each offense.
Ann Arbor police might not
be able to enter your residence
immediately, but you may not
always be able to keep them out.
In general, Ann Arbor police only
enter a residence under three condi-
tions: they are invited inside, no one
who owns the residence is available
to speak to police, or police obtain a
search warrant.
Dresleski said police also would
enter a residence if a crime, such as
a fistfight, is being committed inside.
If a student continually refuses to
answer the door or to turn down loud
music, police may obtain a search
warrant.
"I can get a search warrant in
about 20 minutes" Dresleski said.
"But only when people are being
unreasonable."
Persanti said the same rules
apply in the dorms, but not every-
one in uniform has the right to
enter your dorm. Housing Security
officers, who look much like DPS
police officers but do not carry
guns, and resident advisers cannot
legally enter a dorm room unless
invited.
Hospital staff will not call
the police if an underage student
arrives in the emergency room
with alcohol poisoning.
Police are required to send stu-
dents to the emergency room if
necessary, DPS spokeswoman
Diane Brown said. The AAPD will
4
send students to the hospital if the
student has a blood alcohol level
of .35 or over or is incapacitated.
DPS will send anyone to the hospi-
tal who has a blood alcohol level of
.2 or is incapacitated, and anyone
with a reading of .08 or greater will
be taken to a DPS holding cell until
sober.
Officers must be able to artic-
ulate a reason they are stopping
students on the street.
"Students are stopped for drawing
attention to themselves " Brown said.
"Police aren't just waiting for some-
thing to do. Destroying propertyuri-
nating in public, making too much
noise, falling down and passing out
all draw attention."
Dreslinski said the best policy
when talking to an officer is to coop-
erate.
"Generally people talk them-
selves into tickets, not out of them,'
he said.
the crpsord puzzle.
i