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LOS ANGELES - George Lopez underwent a kidney transplant with an organ donated by his wife, a publicist for the actor-comedian said Monday. George and Ann Lopez "are resting comfortably in their Los Angeles home and are both expected to make a full recovery," according to a statement from spokeswoman Marleah Leslie. The operation occurred last week at an undisclosed hospital in Los Angeles, said another spokeswoman, Ann Gurrola. Lopez, star of the ABC comedy "George Lopez," had a genetic condition that caused kidney deterioration, the release said. Further information on the condition was unavailable, Gurrola said. Filming on his...

State Probes Kidney Failure In Children After Petting Zoos POSTED: 5:51 am EST March 23, 2005 UPDATED: 6:10 am EST March 23, 2005 ORLANDO, Fla. -- Five children in critical condition with kidney failure may have picked up a rare infection at petting zoos, health officials said. State and county health officials are investigating the infections, said Bill Toth of the Orange County Health Department. Four children being treated at Florida Hospital Orlando visited zoos at the Central Florida Fair in Orlando, which ended March 13. A fifth child who visited a petting zoo at the Florida Strawberry Festival in...

Fri 18 Mar 2005 11:17am (UK) Man Leaves Kidney Donor Wife - for Sister-in-Law By Simon Evans, PA After risking death by giving her husband a kidney four years ago, a town’s mayor has been dumped for another woman – her sister-in-law, it emerged today. For more than 20 years, Carol Jewell and John, her husband of three decades, were Liberal Democrat councillors in Woodley, near Reading, Berkshire. The couple, both 53, who have two daughters, also worked together at the University of Reading. Beth Rowland, leader of Woodley Town Council, said the couple had been married for 33 years...

AMSTERDAM — Health Minister Hoogervorst wants to give priority on transplantation waiting lists to people who are registered as donors, but MPs slammed the proposal on claims it will introduce discrimination in healthcare. The Liberal VVD minister defended his proposal by pointing out that Muslims often refuse to donate organs based on religious beliefs. This is despite the fact they are willing to receive an organ if they are ill. "That creates a bad feeling," he said. "If you say: 'I refuse to donate an organ because of my religion, but I don't want to receive one either', than I...

Say they sense traits, tastes of organ donors For most of her life, the young woman hated sports. And though she was born and raised in Tucson, she never liked Mexican food. She craved Italian and was a pasta junkie. But three years ago, all that changed for Jaime Sherman, 28, when she underwent a heart transplant at University Medical Center, after battling a heart defect since birth. "Now I love football, baseball, basketball. You name it, I follow it," said Sherman, a psychology student at Arizona State University. "And Mexican food is by far my favorite." She'd heard similar...

LOMA LINDA, Calif. (AP) - A Marine who received a liver transplant because of a near-fatal infection that developed after his return from Iraq may now need a bone marrow transplant. Lance Cpl. Christopher LeBleu, 22, has a "high probability" of needing the transplant because he has developed aplastic anemia, which has caused his bone marrow to stop producing enough red blood cells to keep him alive, Loma Linda University Medical Center officials said Wednesday. The hospital appealed for blood donors with Type O blood to join a registry of potential bone marrow donors so doctors can find a potential...

Department of Anesthesiology, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, USA. The "dead-donor rule" requires patients to be declared dead before the removal of life-sustaining organs for transplantation. The concept of brain death was developed, in part, to allow patients with devastating neurologic injury to be declared dead before the occurrence of cardiopulmonary arrest. Brain death is essential to current practices of organ retrieval because it legitimates organ removal from bodies that continue to have circulation and respiration, thereby avoiding ischemic injury to the organs. The concept of brain death has long been recognized, however, to be plagued with serious inconsistencies and...

His case had been reviewed, the letter said. ``In addition, we have reviewed your personal Web site.'' The American Society of Transplant Surgeons and LifeLink are ``strongly opposed to the solicitation of organs or organ donors by recipients or their agents through Web sites,'' the letter continued. ``After careful deliberation, we will not consider any living donor for you.'' Crionas was stunned by the decision. ``I was dumbfounded ... I'm, like, are you serious?'' The LifeLink letter said he could be put back on the national list to wait for a ``deceased'' kidney of someone who had made provisions to...

HARTFORD — Besides being an incredibly selfless act, donating your kidney or bone marrow to help another can be very expensive. Two local lawmakers hope to provide some relief in the form of a tax credit. Their proposal would provide a tax credit of up to $10,000 for a taxpayer who donates an organ or partial organ, such as a kidney, pancreas, intestine, lung or bone marrow. The credit would apply to surgery-related transportation, lodging and lost wages. The bill only applies to living organ donors. The bill is being co-sponsored by state Rep. Mary Ann Carson, R-New Fairfield, and...

Doctors may have found a way around a major obstacle in the effort to perfect transplants of islet cells, an experimental treatment for Type 1 diabetes, a severe form that often begins in childhood. Such transplants usually succeed only if islet cells from the pancreases of two or even three donors are used - a significant drawback, given the scarcity of donor organs. But now, in a trial of eight patients at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, doctors have managed successful transplants of islet cells, which are needed to produce insulin, with the pancreases of single donors. The use...

Feb. 16, 2005 - Three hospital patients in Germany appear to have been infected with rabies through organ transplants and are in critical condition, a medical foundation said Wednesday. Three others who received transplants from the same donor, a woman who died of a heart attack late last year, are doing fine, the German Foundation for Organ Transplants said. The donor showed no rabies symptoms at the time of her death, although a recent examination of her brain showed typical signs of the disease, the group said. How the woman may have contracted rabies was unclear, but the group noted...

Plucky "Baby Jordan" — his tiny new heart beating beautifully just two weeks after a lifesaving transplant — is going home to Brooklyn today, hospital officials said. Jordan Trimarchi was born at NYU's Downtown Hospital on Jan. 18 with a heart tumor, which was removed by surgeons at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian three days later. After a desperate search for a donor turned up a new heart, surgeons performed the delicate transplant on Jan. 26. Jordan was moved to the cardiac floor of Children's Hospital after spending five days on a ventilator in intensive care.

Miracle cells SCIENCE: Cutting-edge researchers are making unheralded breakthroughs with stem cells from umbilical cords—but have a hard time breaking through the NIH funding wall. "I think people who want embryonic stem cells just don't want [alternatives] to work" | by Lynde Langdon LAWRENCE, Kan. — At the University of Kansas, Dr. Kathy Mitchell has two small labs that resemble high-school biology classrooms, just with more expensive equipment. In the smallest one, the size of a large supply closet, she pulls up a computer screen showing fluorescent dots in a sea of translucent green. She clicks her mouse, and the...