Genetic Tests Ordered to Avoid Baby’s Exhumation : Malpractice: Preserved tissues may prove the identity of the child who died as a result of a birth defect.

In an attempt to avoid exhuming the body of an infant whose disputed identity is a central issue in a medical malpractice lawsuit, the Los Angeles County counsel’s office has ordered genetic tests on the infant’s preserved tissues.

An attorney for Patricia Chavez, who sued the county as the dead baby’s mother, had announced earlier this week that she would have the baby dug up and DNA tests performed to prove the child was Chavez’s son, Steven Ruiz.

The attorney said the tests would disprove the county’s contention that the child that died on Feb. 5, 1990, was not the child Chavez gave birth to five days earlier at the county-owned Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar.

Chavez charges that the child died of a birth defect that county doctors failed to notice, but county attorneys have responded that they suspect her of substituting someone else’s sickly infant, which subsequently died.

DNA tests, sometimes called genetic fingerprinting, could establish that the child was not Chavez’s, or could find evidence of a high probability that it was.

Assistant County Counsel Robert Ambrose said Friday the county would try to eliminate the need for the body to be exhumed for testing.

“We don’t want to see that take place,” he said. “I’m a father of five. . . . It is just an awful thought to me.”

However, Ambrose said the county also had approached Chavez’s attorney, Aileen N. Goldstein, a month ago suggesting the test be tried and that she declined to provide the necessary blood tests from Chavez and her boyfriend, Reynaldo Ruiz.

“I’m not interested in fighting with them at all,” Ambrose said, “but the opportunity was there last month.”

Goldstein, however, said she had not been asked until Wednesday to provide the blood samples.

“They’re lying, but that’s nothing new,” she said.

“If they had asked me back in October, I would have given it to them.”

The DNA tests will be performed on tissue from the dead infant, which was preserved in formaldehyde by the county coroner’s office following an autopsy.

Medical authorities question whether formaldehyde-treated tissues will produce accurate DNA readings.

Jennifer Mihalovich, a criminalist with Forensic Science Associates, a leading DNA testing firm in Richmond, Calif., said her laboratory does not even accept tissue samples that have been stored in formaldehyde.

She said the chemical causes the DNA molecules to fuse and makes them useless for the purpose of matching samples with DNA from relatives.

“The likelihood of getting a result is greatly diminished,” she said.

Ambrose said the county had found a firm willing to perform the test and had already sent the tissues to it.

He said he did not know the name of the company but said results are expected within three weeks.

Because of her concerns about the quality of the sample, Goldstein said she would not rule out a future exhumation of the infant’s body.

Mihalovich said that because of the length of time the baby’s body has been in the ground, even tissues taken during an exhumation might not be conclusive.

Staff writer Richard Colvin also contributed to this story.