The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is launching an investigation of practices in the human tissue industry following reports of abuses in the collection and distribution of donated human tissue and organs. The investigation by the department's inspector general will focus on accreditation standards for privately run tissue banks and on protections to ensure tissue donors get adequate disclosure on the ultimate use of the tissue, a department spokeswoman said.
Human tissue includes bones, tendons, heart valves, corneas, skin and other body parts.
Tissue banks and some organ banks solicit tissue donations from the families of people who have just died. Frequently, the families of tissue donors, who may be influenced by dramatic appeals that portray a dire need for their loved one's bodies, are not told of the profitable market for human body parts. Tissue most often is used in transplants, but it also is used for research by universities and drug companies and by biotech businesses that make medical products. Some of those goods include ground bone powders used as glues to cement bone grafts, and gels and skinlike coverings derived from donated skin and used in cosmetic surgery. The department investigation follows the publication in the Tribune and the Orange County Register in California of separate investigative series disclosing questionable practices and the millions of dollars in profits generated by the collection, distribution and use of donated tissue.