Most claims dismissed in brain harvest suit

SEATTLE – A federal judge has dismissed all but one of the claims brought by a North Carolina woman who accused the medical examiner’s office here of harvesting her brother’s brain and other organs for research without permission.

Robinette Amaker, of Fayetteville, sued in 2005 – seven years after the fact – when she learned her brother’s brain, spleen, samples of his liver and other body parts had been provided to Stanley Medical Research Institute, of Bethesda, Md.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman dismissed the claims Amaker brought against the King County Medical Examiner’s Office and Stanley Medical for interfering with a corpse, invasion of privacy and civil conspiracy. But the judge said she would consider whether Amaker can pursue a claim for violations of Washington’s Uniform Anatomical Gift Act.

Amaker’s brother, Bradley Gierlich, died in 1998 of a heroin overdose. At the time, the nonprofit Stanley foundation had given the medical examiner’s office a grant to harvest brains and other organs for research on mental illness. The foundation paid for a pathologist who worked in the office full time from 1995 to 2003.

During the course of the grant, the medical examiner’s office harvested 255 brains. County officials have said they have completed consent forms for all but two, including Gierlich’s.