A Texas medical center announced Tuesday that it has recalled body parts sent to dozens of research establishments nationwide after officials discovered that many may carry the AIDS virus. A spokesperson for the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston told health administrators yesterday that a former employee who kept flawed records might have shipped body parts to institutions before they were properly tested for AIDS and other infections. Although most parts were used by medical students for analysis and then discarded, cartilage and ligaments from the samples may have been used in tissue transplants.

The employee, Allen Tyler, is already the focus of an FBI investigation over allegations that he illegally sold donated body parts on the black market through the Medical Branch's Willed Body Program, which received about 300 bodies a year. The program was dismantled earlier this year. Officials are asking any institution that received parts from the UTMB between November 2000 and May 2002 to immediately return them.