And this just in . . .

AP New Jersey
Another 25 N.C. patients notified of stolen tissue transplants
January 7, 2006, 5:27 PM EST

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Another 25 patients at North Carolina hospitals have been notified that they may have received transplants of human tissue that was stolen from funeral homes in New York, bringing the statewide total to more than 75 people who may have been effected.

Officials at Concord's NorthEast Medical Center notified 22 people who had surgery between September 2003 and this October that they may have received the tissue. Three patients from Rowan Regional Medical Center in Salisbury also were to be notified.

Other hospitals across the state said Thursday that a total of more than 50 people who were treated at their facilities may have had stolen tissue implanted.

None of the patients appears to have been harmed, according to officials at Carolinas Medical Center and Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, Catawba Valley Medical Center in Hickory, WakeMed and Duke Health Raleigh in Raleigh, Duke University Medical Center in Durham, and Southeast Regional Medical Center in Lumberton.

Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J. is under investigation for allegedly removing bone and tissue from corpses without permission from families and selling them for reconstructive surgery. No charges have been filed.

The company provides tissue for manufacturers that process it in batches and package it for surgical use.

Spokesmen for NorthEast and Rowan Regional had said earlier this week that they had not received suspect tissue. But Lee Brower of NorthEast and Phil Whitesell of Rowan Regional told The Charlotte Observer on Friday that they were wrong.

The tissue in question came from companies that bought body parts from Biomedical Tissue Services, which is being investigated by the district attorney's office in Brooklyn, N.Y., and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Investigators are trying to determine whether skin, bones, tendons and other body parts were illegally removed from corpses and sold to five processing plants around the country that test, sterilize and shape the material before it is used in surgery.