Senator seeks data on UCLA transplants

An influential U.S. senator sent a series of letters Friday seeking additional details about four liver transplants at UCLA Medical Center involving patients who were suspected members or associates of Japanese organized crime groups.

“While surgeons do not seek to pass moral judgment on the patients they treat, Americans hope at the very least that foreign criminal figures wait in line along with the rest of us,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote in a letter to UCLA.

Grassley sent the letters after two Times articles last week detailed the transplants, which took place between 2000 and 2004, and subsequent donations to UCLA of $100,000 from two of the recipients.

The most prominent liver recipient was Tadamasa Goto, allegedly one of the most powerful gang leaders in Japan. Dr. Ronald W. Busuttil, the world-renowned UCLA liver surgeon who performed all four transplants, examined Goto subsequently in Japan, once while he was in custody.

Grassley sent a separate letter to the FBI, which helped Goto gain a visa to enter the United States in 2001, supposedly in exchange for information about potentially illegal Japanese gang activity in this country. The deal backfired, law enforcement officials told The Times. Goto received his liver transplant at UCLA but failed to provide useful information to the FBI, a retired official said.

Grassley also sent letters asking for information from the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and the Joint Commission, a private group that accredits hospitals.

Several medical ethicists told The Times that the four transplants raised broader issues about whether organs donated in the United States should be given to foreigners who have criminal records. Goto and the other three recipients are now barred from entering the United States because of their criminal histories, gang affiliations or both, a law enforcement official has said.

There is no proof that UCLA or Busuttil knew about any of the patients’ gang ties at the time of the surgeries. In addition, there is no suggestion that the hospital or the surgeon violated any laws or rules governing the nation’s transplant system.

U.S. transplant rules do not prohibit hospitals from performing transplants on criminals. They encourage programs to limit the number of organs they give to foreign patients.

UCLA spokeswoman Dale Tate said hospital officials haven’t had an opportunity to review Grassley’s letter and could not comment on it. She said that the hospital would “be responsive” to any request for information.

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charles.ornstein@latimes.com

john.glionna@latimes.com