Posted on 11/16/2007 4:22:08 PM PST by wagglebee
CHICAGO - A woman in her 30s who is one of the four organ transplant patients infected with HIV and hepatitis was not told that the infected donor was high risk, and had previously rejected another donor "because of his lifestyle," her attorney said.
Attorney Thomas Demetrio filed a petition Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of the woman, asking officials to keep a hospital and an organ procurement center from destroying or altering any records involving the donation.
"She's really a mess right now," Demetrio said of the Chicago-area woman. "She's still in shock."
The patient, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, received a kidney transplant at the University of Chicago Medical Center on Jan. 9, Demetrio said.
Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network in Elmhurst and the University of Chicago both knew the kidney donor was high-risk and did not inform the patient, Demetrio said.
University of Chicago spokesman John Easton responded in an e-mail: "We believe we follow guidelines, and of course with the patient's consent we will provide necessary records and documents, as is consistent with our open process."
Gift of Hope did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The woman had been told the donor was a healthy young man, her attorney said. But on Tuesday, hospital officials disclosed to the woman that he was actually high-risk, a 38-year-old gay man, Demetrio said. CDC guidelines say that gay men who are sexually active should not be used as organ donors unless the patient is in imminent danger of death.
The woman was told she had HIV and hepatitis on Nov. 1, he said.
"The (organ) procurement group knew, the hospital knew, but the most important person did not know," he said. "The people that dedicate their lives to these transplant surgeries, they're just great people, but they need to bring the patient into the mix and let them make an informed decision."
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines were violated twice, the attorney said. One violation was not informing the woman about the donor's status and then not testing her afterward for HIV until just recently, after HIV and hepatitis were found during tests on another patient who was being evaluated for a second transplant.
The woman had been "doing great" on dialysis and had been on the donor waiting list for over six years, Demetrio said. In fact, she had rejected a potential donor two years ago "because of his lifestyle," the attorney said.
The woman developed renal failure seven years ago but he did not know what caused it.
"The fact is the transplant took very well. She'd been bumping along" doing fine, "then she gets this phone call on Nov. 1."
She's been started on an HIV drug regimen "and unfortunately one of the side effects is it's not good for the kidneys," Demetrio said. She's not hospitalized.
Four patients got organs in January at three Chicago hospitals from a donor who died after a traumatic injury. The donor had engaged in high-risk behaviors, according to a screening questionnaire, but standard testing showed the donor did not have AIDS or hepatitis C.
Gift of Hope tested the organs and approved them for donation, telling the three hospitals that they came from a high-risk donor.
Several months later, when one of the patients was being evaluated, blood tests showed the patient had HIV and hepatitis C. The other three patients were notified and tested, showing they had both viruses.
The CDC says it's the first time ever that both viruses were transmitted simultaneously through an organ transplant. It's also the first known time since 1986 that HIV was transmitted through organ donation.
I serious doubt the doctors would expose themselves to this if they had known. Operating on someone with this condition is very risky for the Doctors and Nurses. It would be advisable for the Doctors and Nurses to be tested.
A lot of people predicted this stuff twenty years ago. They were called “right-wing nutjobs”, “extremists” and “tin foil hat wearers.” Personally I wear my tin foil hat with pride now:)
Seriously, I would not mind rejecting all homosexuals for blood donors or tissue donors, unless they were going to another homosexual patient.
Further, I would also like stricter policies towards straight donors too, based on their poor lifestlye choices. I already know they reject all drug users, but I wouldn’t mind them rejecting single people who by their own admission are sexually active. If that drops the potential pool, so be it. There’s a lot of nasty dieseases floating around in the hetero community that you can’t get rid of, too.
I don’t know, but if I were those negligent doctors, I’d be watching my back a lot more carefully from now on.
TPTB have already told us that in so many words....
We ve been told that not only are we heteros just as much at risk as gay men....NOT TRUE.... but, that we heteros will have to alter OUR lives and the lives of OUR kids because of their disease spreading ways....
OUR indedpendence and OUR freedoms will be sacrificed ....
We couldn't isolate gay men with AIDS....we couldn't close bath houses....we couldn't condemn their "lifestyle".....
We couldn't get homos off the tv or the movies....we couldn't refuse to have them give "talks" in our schools....
But we sure as hell could pay for them and their promiscuous ways....
every study done to my knowledge shows that living an active gay lifestyle which is ultimately having frequent anal sex with multiple partners is a HUGE and DEVASTATING heatlh risk...even if HIV was not around.
Are you crazy? These poor people who thought they were being given the gift of life just received a death sentence. Not only were they given HIV they were given Hepatitis as well. All without their knowledge. Both incurable diseases, where there is NO treatment for. I would also imagine that these diseases could potentially attack their bodies quicker because they are already compromised.
I have a relative who is a homosexual...he does not jump from bed to bed thank God....but he believes that AIDs is all the fault of Reagan....supposedly Reagan had a magic wand to make bad diseases dissappear....
I don’t fault the donor but I fault his “community” for making AIDs a politically correct disease with special protections.....
I was stationed in Germany for eight years so I can’t either. I was told that I will not be eligible to donate until they come up with a practical screening test for the human form of Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (BSE).
I would like to donate but I understand why they say I can’t.
Meanwhile the “Bath House Boys” are demanding the “Right” for gays to donate blood.
wonder if grey’s anatomyor ER will have the guts to do a story based on this.
Possible. Just as likely that he checked the "organ donor" box on his driver's license 10-odd years ago, and the hospital screwed up and didn't bother to check to see what he died of...
I'm not excusing his behavior...'tis something that one less self-obsessed would have thought of, IMHO.
Yep. And any man that’s had sex with a prostitute is at risk too. That lets out quite a few good hetero men. And a heck of a lot of soldiers. It may have changed, but until recently, women in the 50-60 age group were among the fastest growing AIDS population.
I wouldn’t want AIDS/HIV, don’t get me wrong. But Magic Johnson (among others) has lived a long time with it. If it can be kept in check, if the right cocktail of meds are prescribed.....well, who knows? She might live a lot longer than she would have without the transplant.
This makes no sense to me. What’s the point of being an organ donor if you’re HIV positive, anyway?? It’s like giving a hungry child a poison cookie.
He wasnt HIV positive and it takes time for someone to become HIV positive. He tested negative at the time of the dontation but had a homosexual hi risk lifestyle. So he was a not converting carrier. If he had lived longer he would have converted to HIV positive.
Sad.
A few years ago, a hospital in Dallas gave several patients rabies via transplant.
Maybe you are not a protected class.
Yes, but she has no civil recourse. Tort reform, don’t you know?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.