Families accuse U. of using patients' eyes without OK

Philadelphia resident Towanda Bright said she is being forced to relive the nightmare of her infant son's death. Once again, the University and the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office are being linked to brains and eyes removed from dead patients without the consent of their relatives. In the newest installment of this macabre story, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner has been accused of removing eyes and optic nerves from 19 dead children and infants for a study without seeking their parents permission. According to a published scientific report, the study was a joint effort between the city Medical Examiner's office and the Scheie Eye Institute, which is a part of the University's Department of Ophthalmology. The study covered a 23-month period ending in August 1990. Eyes were allegedly removed from the children all under the age of three. The causes of death included blunt trauma to the head, shaken baby syndrome, and sudden infant death syndrome, according to the report, which was published in the March issue of Ophthalmology Magazine. Bright, whose 17-month-old son died as a result of child abuse, said she is very upset with the city of Philadelphia. She said she was never told anything about her son's eyes. "I picture myself lifting up his right eye to see if it's there," Bright said. "I wish I never really found out," she added. "To remove his eye was not a necessity. They figured I'm not intelligent enough to find out the procedure of an autopsy. Since they are the city of Philadelphia they think they can do whatever they want." Bright said she never would have given consent if she had been asked to. She added that the Medical Examiner's Office never had the right to remove her son's eyes without her consent. "It's like their dissecting frogs or something," she said, adding that she is thinking about taking legal action against the city of Philadelphia. Scheie Eye Institute spokesperson Harriet Levy said the whole story is being blown out of proportion. "It's really not nearly what it sounded like," Levy said. "No permission is requested when an autopsy is for a criminal investigation." A press statement released by the University stated, "As part of a police investigation into the suspicious death of a child, the Medical Examiner has a legal mandate to perform an autopsy in order to confirm or eliminate abuse as a causative factor. In such cases, standard autopsy protocol includes the removal and pathological examination of the eyes and optic nerves." Levy said she does not think the medical examiner has acted inappropriately. "To someone out there in the public, it's shocking," Levy said. "But there isn't anything inappropriate with what the [Medical Examiner's Office] did." The purpose of the eye study was to do a comparison of the brain and optic nerve damage suffered by shaken children with that suffered by those who had visible head injuries. The study's conclusion stated that victims of shaken baby syndrome suffered fatal damage similar to those of blunt trauma. The SIDS victims did not have those injuries. These new allegations come at a time when the University and the city are being jointly sued in six cases involving the mishandling of brains, given to the University by the city Medical Examiner's Office. The brains in question were supposedly sent by the medical examiner to the University in an agreement between Deputy Medical Examiner Ian Hood and Professor Alan Rosenquist. Records from the suits indicated that 26 brains were sent from the medical examiner's office to the University Medical School between December 1990 and 1991. The brains were allegedly sent to the Medical School so students could study the brains and determine the cause of death. The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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