FDA Shuts Down Body, Tissue Broker in North Carolina

The Food and Drug Administration closed down a body parts broker in North Carolina on August 18, 2006, for harvesting human tissue in a non-sterile environment.

The FDA claimed the company, Donor Referral Services of Raleigh, N.C., was targeted due to "serious deficiencies" not only in the processing of the tissue, but in donor screening and record-keeping.

The government agency will not say how many people may have received transplants of possibly infected tissue.

However, a spokeswoman for the FDA said individual doctors and hospitals will be notified.

Company owner Philip Guyett may have run afoul of the law previously.

Records indicate a person with the same name and birth date as Guyett entered a no contest pleas to an embezzlement charge centering around a willed body program he directed at a Pomana, CA, in the late 1990s, according to records from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office.

Tissue that is not properly processed or poorly tested tissue can lead to infections like hepatitis or AIDS, and in some cases, death.