NHS patients have been implanted with potentially contaminated pieces of bone from a batch stolen from dead Americans, including the veteran broadcaster Alistair Cooke.

More than 70 pieces of bone were grafted into the patients at about 20 hospitals after they were imported from a New Jersey company now under investigation in America.

The imported bones were harvested by the firm from corpses in US funeral parlours without the deceased’s prior consent and without adequate checks to ensure the bodies were free of disease.

While many of the affected bone products that entered Britain were recalled after a safety alert, it was too late to retrieve 77 implants that were already grafted on to the hips and jaws of British patients.

The victims are understood to have been offered screening for diseases such as HIV, hepatitis and syphilis, which can be transmitted from bones of the dead. The recall has exposed a growing trade in bones and tissue such as ligaments which are harvested from dead Americans and shipped to Britain.

Several companies have set up in the UK to sell bone implants, ligaments and skin grafts to hospitals and clinics. It is illegal to pay donors for tissue but businesses are paid to harvest, store, process and distribute samples.

The imports have increased because of shortages of bones and other tissue in Britain due partly to restrictions imposed after the scandal over the unauthorised retention of organs at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool.

Despite the new international trade, the government organisation responsible for human tissue, the Human Tissue Authority, does not know which countries export skin, bone and ligaments to Britain or the quantities shipped in every year.

The affected bones, which reached Britain last October, came from the tissue recovery business Biomedical Tissue Services (BTS). The New Jersey company was forced to close by the US Food and Drug Administration last autumn amid allegations that it had forged consent forms and other documents to gain access to dead bodies from undertakers.

Among the bodies desecrated was that of Alistair Cooke, whose Letter from America ran on BBC radio for 58 years. Although Cooke died from cancer at the age of 95, his bones were allegedly stolen and sold by BTS. American regulators also say the company failed to screen corpses properly for communicable diseases.

Its director, Michael Mastromarino, a dentist who lost his practice licence because of drug addiction, and two of his assistants, face criminal charges of soliciting undertakers to provide illegally body parts such as tendons, skin and bone from corpses. Mastromarino was allegedly aided by Joseph Nicelli, an undertaker charged with providing bodies for cash.

In Britain the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority, the agency responsible for ensuring the safety of medical treatments, confirmed bone parts had been imported and implanted in patients.

They received bone implants or grafts sculpted to fill holes in the jaw and hip bones. However, regulators insist the risk of infection is low as the bones were sterilised before being shaped into implants.

BTS is part of a network of businesses that profit from tissue harvesting, processing and distribution.

To reach Britain, bone retrieved from American corpses by BTS was sold to Regeneration Technologies, and then on to a UK distribution company, Plus Orthopedics (UK). Regeneration Technologies, which cleans and sterilises bones and tissue, is facing action in the US for allegedly failing to follow procedures and check on consent.

This weekend one leading orthopaedic surgeon criticised the practice of buying US bones and ligaments as “immoral” and “unethical”.

Angus Wallace, professor of orthopaedic and accident surgery at Nottingham University, said: “The importation of human bones and tissues both for the treatment of patients and for surgical training is wrong. Why should we take bones and tissues from people in another country? We should do this within our own country for our own people.

“We have been exposing our patients to increased risk by importing from other countries where we cannot monitor the quality of the way in which these tissues are collected. I am concerned about the potential for disease transfer.”

Wallace blamed shortages of tissue on the fall-out from Alder Hey and the Bristol babies scandal, where organs were removed without consent. He said doctors were being discouraged by NHS and health department officials from removing bones and tendons from dead British bodies.

“The government does not want us to use body parts for purposes that might be controversial,” he said.

The Human Tissue Authority, which regulates the use of of bodies and organs, said: “The HTA does not license the import and export of tissues. It does, however, require establishments storing tissue to have systems and operating procedures to allow an audit trail in case of an adverse event.”

Additional reporting: Elizabeth Davidson and Joe Lauria

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