CORNEA REMOVAL GUIDELINES WILL BE SET.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

Corneas will no longer be taken from corpses without seeking permission from family members, Coroner Anthony Hernandez told the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

The Coroner's Office has come under fire for allowing a private eye bank to remove corneas from corpses for transplant procedures without first getting permission from the deceased person's family members.

State law permits the removal of corneas, the tissue that covers an eye's iris, if next of kin have not specifically voiced an objection to the procedure.

``I do think it's unseemly not to contact the families,'' said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. ``Nobody knew it was happening. How do you know your loved one's cornea is gone?''

The supervisors Tuesday asked Hernandez to report back to them in two weeks with new guidelines for how the department will handle cornea removal in the future.

In addition, Yaroslavsky said he was concerned about the propriety of family members of Coroner's Office employees being hired by Doheny Eye & Tissue Transplant Bank, the company that has the contract with the county to harvest the corneas.

Yaroslavsky asked Hernandez to create a new protocol for such arrangements because of the close relationship between coroner's employees and the private firm.

Supervisors acted after details about the previous cornea removal policy and the close ties between the Coroner's Office and the Doheny Eye & Tissue Transplant Bank were reported in the Los Angeles Times.

State legislators exempted corneas from normal consent requirement because of a shortage of available corneas and because corneas must be removed within 12 hours of a person's death in order to be successfully harvested.

Hernandez has committed to seeking permission from family members before removing corneas. However, if family members cannot be found within 12 hours of a person's death, the corneas will be taken, he said.