Unregulated cadaver parts industry helped build Rosemont’s reputation for surgical training
Jean Lotus — January 20, 2016
Orthopedic Learning Center in Rosemont is a “bioskills” lab which uses cadaver parts for surgeon training.
Part three in a series of stories on the body-parts trade.
In January 2015, the FBI raided the Rosemont offices of a for-profit human tissue donation firm as part of an investigation of a multi-state illegal body parts ring.
Biological Service Center-Illinois was renting Suite 505 of the 9501 W. Devon Ave. building, which houses Rosemont Village Hall and the police station.
The FBI also raided the company’s Schiller Park crematorium, which they alleged was the source of more than 1,000 dismembered human body parts seized in raids in Arizona and Detroit a year earlier. The raids put a spotlight on what the FBI called the “black and gray” market in human tissue used for scientific research and training.
“There is an enormous demand for other body tissues and parts that fall outside of the well-regulated organ transplantation system,” wrote Agent Paul Johnson in a search warrant affidavit.
The FBI alleges BRC-Illinois and its associates made “hundreds of thousands of dollars” selling dissected human cadavers, which can be worth from $10,000-$100,000 if cut up and sold. The company also fraudulently trafficked diseased human body parts, the FBI alleges, from donors with HIV, hepatitis, MRSA and sepsis.
“Trouble starts as soon as you start making a profit off trafficking of human body parts,” said Callum Ross, head of the University of Chicago anatomy department. Ross is a board member of the Chicago not-for-profit Anatomical Gift Association, a competitor of BRC-Illinois. “The industry is not very well-regulated.”
But Rosemont’s reputation as a top national location for surgical training has arisen, in part, because of donation, use and sale of cadaver parts for medical use.
Father and son Donald A. Greene Sr. of Rosemont and Donald A Greene Jr. of Des Plaines worked with Rosemont medical organizations 20 years ago to provide a source of human body parts for surgical demonstrations at the Orthopedic Learning Center, a “bioskills lab” that opened in the 1990s, according to their website.
For 20 years, surgeons have travelled to Rosemont from around the world to learn surgical skills on cadaveric specimens. Medical tool and supply companies host workshops and product demonstrations for new bone and joint surgery tools. Surgeons boost the local economy by staying in local hotels, enjoying catered food or trips to Chicago restaurants and nightlife.
In February 2015, the OLC moved into a new 180,000-square-foot $10 million building on 2.2 acres at 9400 W. Higgins Road, according to the village website. The lab occupies one floor while offices of medical associations rent the rest of the building. The new space has 24 lab stations, video screens, conference and meeting areas and airport kiosks to check flights. The new lab also has a decontamination room and a specimen room for storage of body parts.
Orthopedic Learning Center no longer acquires biological specimens from the Greenes, said Executive Director Pat Cichlar in an email.
“The OLC does not work with the Greens [sic] to provide tissue specimens for events at the OLC,” Cichlar wrote. The lab only works with companies certified by the American Association of Tissue Banks, she said.
The lab also screens for disease before using any anatomical specimen.
“Test results are provided and reviewed prior to the receipt of any tissue specimens at the OLC,” Cichler wrote.
But according to the Greene’s cached website, Donald Greene claims to have helped start the OLC by consulting with the Arthroscopy Association of North America (AANA) in 1990. Greene Sr. worked for the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office and then started a Rosemont-based high-volume cremation and funeral business with a relative, according to Illinois Secretary of State records.
Past AANA President Dr. Howard Sweeney of Northbrook, a former Northwestern Hospital surgeon, now age 81, envisioned the OLC as a teaching center for arthroscopy, a new less-invasive surgical procedure.
Sweeney spent “years of traveling the country teaching with vegetables and plastic models as the ‘patient.’” He helped establish the OLC “where human cadaver parts are used to allow orthopedic surgeons to hone their skills,” the OLC website says. Sweeney did not return phone messages for comment.
The younger Donald Greene worked as an OLC lab assistant right out of college and with his father started a “willed body program” for the AANA. The father and son started a company, Anatomical Services, Inc., to manage the program, which began as a way to acquire body part specimens for the OLC. Donald Greene Sr. also is registered as the owner of a company called Anatomical Service, Inc., in Lubbock Texas.
But the human tissue trade is a murky and unregulated area, unlike the organ donation system, which follows federal rules.
In the FBI affidavit, Anatomical Services, Inc. is alleged between 1997-2011 to have fraudulently provided 45 biological specimens from donors who tested positive for hepatitis. Seventeen donors had died from sepsis, the document said. These were only some of the allegations in the affidavit, which also accused the Greenes’ companies of shipping body parts from donors with HIV, MRSA and tuberculosis. The FBI also alleged the Greenes misrepresented how the deceased donors’ bodies would be used and sold parts of bodies without permission.
The Greenes merged with an Arizona human tissue bank called Biological Resource Center in the 2007, the FBI said.
“Contrary to representations that they did not accept infected donor bodies, BRC-IL and ASI have accepted for donation and profited from human remains of individuals with known infectious diseases,” the FBI warrant said.
The Greenes have not been charged. They declined to comment about the FBI allegations through their attorney.
In October, Stephen Gore, of Biological Resource center in Phoenix, Arizona, pleaded guilty in to trafficking diseased human specimens and the body parts of donors without permission.
University of Chicago’s Ross said human anatomical parts are vital for teaching medical students.
“They absolutely need cadavers for dissection,” he said. “Medical research companies need access to organs and tissues. But what’s fundamental is the source of cadaveric material must be ethical, legal and safe.”
“We need more voluntary donors,” Ross said. “I don’t know where [BRC-Illinois] were getting their cadavers.”
The Greene family has owned property and operated businesses in Rosemont for more than 20 years, according to legal records. Donald Greene Sr., who goes by the nickname “Stixx” on Facebook, was elected Rosemont park district commissioner in 2013. His wife, Sandra Greene has been employed by the Rosemont Theater.
The Greenes’ companies were also generous campaign donors. The Greenes donated more than $71,000 to campaign committees for Stephens family members including Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens, Triton College Board President Mark Stephens and the Leyden Township Republicans. On six occasions, the Greenes gave $5,000, the maximum amount allowed by Illinois law.
But a village spokesman said the village had little information about the Greene’s company.
“[The Village of Rosemont] has no knowledge of or involvement with anything to do with this company other than that it was there,” said Gary Mack, a village spokesman.
Linda Hayes, a widow who sued the Greenes and their company, said she picked up cremated human remains from the BRC-Illinois office in 2014.
“They were really nice offices. They were fancy like something on Michigan Avenue in Chicago,” Hayes said.
The Village of Rosemont had no records of any zoning variance allowing human remains to be stored in the suite, according to a Freedom of Information Act request. There was also no floor plan of Suite 505 submitted to the village, according to the building department.
Did the village know cremated human remains were being stored in the building?
“Absolutely not,” said Mack.
“The mayor has known the family for many years but doesn’t know a great deal about their business,” Mack said.
The Greenes are still running their crematorium in Schiller Park, but Biological Resource Center is no longer renting Rosemont office space. In July, the company announced it would no longer accept body donations.
Related content: FBI investigates Schiller Park human body-parts lab
Related content: Arizona guilty plea in multi-state illegal body-parts ring
— Unregulated cadaver parts industry helped build Rosemont’s reputation for surgical training —
