This report originally appeared in the December 2009 issue of DOTmed Business News
Philip Joe Guyett, Jr. has been sentenced in the Eastern District of North Carolina to 96 months imprisonment for three counts of mail fraud, committed in relation to his recovery and sale of human tissue for medical implantation. Guyett, acting through a corporate identity of Donor Referral Services, Inc., obtained human tissue from corpses at funeral homes in the North Carolina area. Guyett then sold the collected tissue to various tissue banks for later sale to medical facilities, and the eventual implantation in medical patients.
FDA regulations require that certain medical information of the deceased tissue-donor be collected and analyzed by the tissue harvester. In addition, some medical conditions preclude donated tissue from being used for implantation. Guyett knowingly falsified information on the medical history reports of the deceased donors. This information included donors' age at death or cause of death, so that the tissue he collected would not be rejected by various tissue banks due to disqualifying medical conditions of the donors. Guyett also resubmitted for sale previously rejected tissue under false donor names along with false blood samples from different deceased donors.
U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding stated in a press release, "The heinous nature of Mr. Guyett's crimes cannot be overstated, and today's sentence should give others working in industries critical to the public health a clear signal that this type of reckless dishonesty comes with serious consequences."
