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Tainted-organ transplants trigger legal action, immunity challenge.

Article Excerpt
Tony Grier was 43 years old when he had surgery to receive a lung transplant in 2006. He suffered from pulmonary sarcoidosis, a rare lung disease for which a transplant was the only cure.

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A few months after the operation, Grier, of Newark, New Jersey, was coughing frequently and having trouble breathing. Testing revealed that he had developed cancer. By the time it was discovered, it was untreatable.

Grier had believed his lung donor was a healthy teenager killed in an accident. But his family claims the donor was a heavy smoker with cancerous lungs. Grier's mother, Emma Grier, sued the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where the transplant took place, and the doctors who performed the operation.

The lawsuit alleges that the hospital misinformed Grier about the donor's health and, later, failed to diagnose his cancer. According to the Associated Press, a spokesperson for the hospital said, "We had no way of knowing that we were receiving anything other than healthy organs.... When institutions that perform transplants get the organ, the presumption is that the organs have been tested."

The suit, initially filed in New Jersey, has been transferred to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In April 2008, a judge issued an order sealing all documents in the case that reveal the donor's identity. (Grief v. U. Pa. Health Sys., No. 2:07-CV-04224 (E.D. Pa. filed Oct. 9, 2007).)

In 2004, Cheri Biggs died after receiving a rabies-infected kidney from a donor at Baylor University...