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LANCASTER, Pa. – The mother of the nation's first double hand transplant patient says he's out of the hospital and looking forward to returning to his wife and daughter in Georgia. Doris Schafer told the Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era that her son, Jeff Kepner, visited her over the weekend in Lancaster. She says he plans to return to Augusta, Ga., at the end of this week. Schafer says Kepner is considerably happier than when she saw him in June at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, about a month after the transplant. She says her son still has no feeling...

Now, I did a little bit of digging, and here's what I came up with. According to our president: Obama Statement on 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Decision =========="Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, it's never been more important to protect a woman's right to choose. Last year, the Supreme Court decided by a vote of 5-4 to uphold the Federal Abortion Ban, and in doing so undermined an important principle of Roe v. Wade: that we must always protect women's health. With one more vacancy on the Supreme Court, we could be looking at...

They were strangers living in different parts of the world till about three months ago, when terminal liver failure brought them together in Delhi. Now, 18-month-old Nigerian boy Dike and 44-year-old Mumbai resident Priya have become India's first patients to successfully undergo a swap liver transplant surgery. Unable to find suitable donors with a matching blood group for either Dike or Priya, doctors from Sir Ganga Ram Hospital decided to try out a liver swap, much on the lines of a swap kidney transplant, which has now become common. Five months after his birth, doctors diagnosed Dike with Billiary Atresia...

Many may remember that my son's daughter and only child at that time -- was a victim of Acute Myleogenous Leukemia (adult form), diagnosed when she was nine years old. I have been a strong proponent of bone marrow transplants, because Jennifer is living proof of the success of that procedure. This started just over 11 years ago and the transplant did not take place for about three years -- Jennifer had about a 50/50 chance of survival -- which rose and fell over that time. Jennifer is now engaged, an incredibly beautiful young lady and she is pregnant. This...

The story of Corp. Benjamin Kopp's life is one about completely dedicating yourself to your country and others. Kopp, of Rosemount, gave his life serving his country. The 21-year-old died July 18 from injuries he suffered after being shot in the leg in Afghanistan while saving the lives of six of his fellow soldiers on July 10. If giving his life wasn't the ultimate sacrifice, even after his death, Kopp kept on giving. Judy Meikle, of Chicago, says she has been long awaiting a heart transplant. Two weeks ago the 57-year-old got a call from her close friend Maria Burud,...

CLEVELAND (AP) - Five years ago, a shotgun blast left a ghastly hole where the middle of her face had been. Five months ago, she received a new face from a dead woman. Connie Culp stepped forward Tuesday to show off the results of the nation's first face transplant, and her new look was a far cry from the puckered, noseless sight that made children run away in horror. Culp's expressions are still a bit wooden, but she can talk, smile, smell and taste her food again. Her speech is at times a little tough to understand. Her face is...

TORONTO, April 9, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A two month-old child at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, described in the media as "dying," has defied doctor's predictions and continued to live after the removal of a respirator. The respirator was removed in the expectation that the child would stop breathing, and that her heart could then be harvested for transplant. Her parents have expressed their disappointment that another child who is being cared for at the hospital will now not receive their daughter's heart. ~Snip~ Kaylee Wallace was born with a condition called Joubert Syndrome, which causes a malformation of the...

A leading French surgeon says he has now effectively carried out a full face transplant after two operations in the same number of weeks. Professor Laurent Lantieri, who has performed three of the world's six partial face transplants, said every feature had now been transferred.

I’d like to ask for your help. And it just might help save someone’s life. In 1991, after living with diabetes and its complications for 20 years, I was fortunate to receive a kidney and a pancreas in an organ transplant operation. Since then, I’ve tried to give back wherever I can, in the hopes that it might benefit someone in the future. I am involved in a transplant study that is trying to discover how the body reacts to transplanted organs, and how the use of immunosuppressive drugs can be minimized. But we need more patients in the study...

A Long Island man's quest to end his messy divorce took a new turn this week as he demanded his estranged wife give back the kidney he donated to her in 2001. It's a touching tale and one that has been met with ridicule from area divorce attorneys. "She ripped out his heart, but he doesn't get to rip out her kidney," says Lisa Bloom, a legal analyst for CBS' The Early Show. Calling this a publicity stunt by the scorned husband, Dr. Richard Batista, Bloom says there is absolutely no chance his soon-to-be ex-wife, Dawnell, will have to give...

Two medical breakthroughs reported last week brings very strong evidence for continue research in the stem cell research field. In one case a new airway need to be replaced and the second case knee injuries needed cartilage.

Freeper friends, I work with Zoe's great-aunt, this little girl needs a heart transplant soon.LasVegasDave Please visit the web site for more information about Zoe. I have pasted some of the daily coments about Zoe's progress.Nov 18Dr. Boyle decided not to punish Zoe for dietarys transgression. He let her have her 15cc every hour and he let her have solid food for the first time in 2 weeks. We tried french fried with no salt but they were too dry. I hit the cafeteria and found 4 of the driest pieces of cantaloupe I could find (fruit’s full of water...

A woman has been given a new section of windpipe created from her own stem cells in an operation that could revolutionise surgery. Claudia Castillo, 30, who lives in Barcelona, has become the first person to be given a whole organ tailor-made for her in laboratories across Europe. A graft from a donor was used, but because it has been imbued with Ms Castillo’s own cells, there is no sign that her body will reject the organ. Researchers and surgeons from Britain, Italy and Spain collaborated to grow tissue from Ms Castillo’s own bone marrow stem cells, using them to...

When the South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard carried out the first heart transplant in December 1967, the world held its breath. His patient, 53-year-old Lewis Washkansky, lived for only another 18 days. The drugs he needed to stop his body rejecting the new organ compromised his immune system to such an extent he couldn’t fight off other illnesses, and he died of pneumonia. But the precedent had been set: the most powerful and emotionally iconic of human organs could be taken from the body of a dead person to give the chance of an extended life to another. It was...

THE world's only transplant recipient of two full arms has spoken of his "indescribable feeling of being a whole man again".

  Infertility fear: Emma Smith, 37, with her son Oliver   Baby boy for woman in double transplantSophie Goodchild and Anna Davis 10.10.08 A woman who had a double organ transplant has defied the odds to become a mother, the Standard can reveal today.Emma Smith, 37, feared she may be infertile because of the side-effects of her anti-rejection drugs.But last week, the former secretary from Hitchin in Hertfordshire gave birth without complications to her first child 6lb baby Oliver.She is the first woman in Britain to deliver a child by Caesarean section after receiving donor kidneys and a pancreas.Her...

Fresh off his tour of heart clinics throughout America, Barak Obama has announced his intention to perform a heart transplant at Johns Hopkins within days. "I have seen the clinics, I've spoken to doctors, nurses, and assistants, and my skill with scalpel and suction has now been tried and tested through careful observation." "I also remind you that for 143 days I was intimately involved in the health care debate in the Senate and for another year on the campaign trail." "What more experience could anyone demand?" asked an incredulous Obama. My heart surgery tour should put to rest any...

For Marisa Hester, a Pentecostal Christian from Prattville, Ala., choosing an outfit for an ultra-Orthodox Crown Heights wedding wasn’t easy. Sorting through her two sets of formalwear, she eventually opted for a knee-length floral skirt and a high-necked black chiffon blouse, embellished with sparkling beads. She worried, however, that her slightly sheer sleeves were too revealing and would insult her newfound family. But at the June 24 wedding, the bride and her relatives could not have been less offended. A year ago, Hester, 26, gave an invaluable gift to the bride’s father, Hershey Fellig, 47, whose struggle she had read...

Patients awaiting organ transplants should decide in advance whether they’re willing to take substandard kidneys, livers and other organs, including those at risk for infectious diseases such as HIV or hepatitis C.

(edit)Kelly, 61, who is also a retired Marine sergeant, was immediately tested to see if he was a match, and as luck would have it, he was.“It was really admirable to see these two men who had defied fear in battle and situations of severe adversity to come together,” Molmenti told FOXNews.com. “Now they’re fighting the biggest fight of their whole lives and they're helping each other with this precious gift.” (edit)

Yesterday, the Mail told the extraordinary story of how a heart transplant recipient in America committed suicide - just like the man whose heart he had received 12 years previously. In another extraordinary twist, it emerged that the recipient had also married the donor's former wife. So can elements of a person's character - or even their soul - be transplanted along with a heart? One woman who believes this to be the case is CLAIRE SYLVIA, a divorced mother of one. She was 47 and dying from a disease called primary pulmonary hypertension when, in 1988, she had a...

As some of you know, I haven't been as active here lately due to an ongoing illness. I have kidney failure due to Polycystic Kidney Disease (an inherited disease), and have been on dialysis since August (and on the transplant list since July 2005). Fortunately, I've still been able to work, but I didn't have much energy left to Freep and do other things I've enjoyed in the past. I got a call today from the transplant department telling me that there is a kidney available. So, I'll be going in tomorrow to get a kidney transplant. Of course, it's...

I have just received word that my niece is in the hospital and in very, very, very bad health. Her liver has failed and her kidneys are now failing. She is on the transplant list, but without a new liver she won’t be leaving the hospital. Please join with me in lifting her up to God for His healing and blessing, asking for a new liver for her. Prayers for her family are also appreciated.

(CBS) Fifteen-year-old Alex Koehne died suddenly last year from what doctors thought was Meningitis. "He said, 'Mommy, am I going to die?', and I said, 'No baby, they're going to make you all better,' his mother, Lisa Koehne remembers. CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reports his devastated parents took some solace in knowing that his death would give others new life. His mother says organ donation is very important to the family. "Alex always knew what he wanted." Alex's liver went to a 52-year-old man. His pancreas to a 36-year-old woman. His kidneys went to two different men, one 46...

A woman claims to have undergone a complete "personality transplant" after receiving a new kidney. Cheryl Johnson, 37, says she has changed completely since receiving the organ in May. She believes that she must have picked up her new characteristics from the donor, a 59-year-old man who died from an aneurysm. Now, not only has her personality changed, the single mother also claims that her tastes in literature have taken a dramatic turn. Whereas she only used to read low-brow novels, Dostoevsky has become her author of choice since the transplant. Miss Johnson, from Penwortham, in Preston, Lancs, said: "You...

A 15-year-old Australian liver transplant patient has defied modern medicine by taking on her donor's immune system. Demi-Lee Brennan had a liver transplant after she suffered liver failure. Nine months later, doctors at Sydney's Westmead Children's Hospital were amazed to find the teenager's blood group had changed to the donor's blood type. Further tests revealed the stem cells from the donor liver had penetrated her bone marrow. Dr Michael Stormon says he and his colleagues were even more surprised when they found the girl's immune system had almost totally been replaced by that of the donor, meaning she no longer...

LOS ANGELES: In what's being called a major advance in organ transplants, doctors say they have developed a technique that could free many patients from having to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives. The treatment involved weakening the patient's immune system, then giving the recipient bone marrow from the person who donated the organ. In one experiment, four of five kidney recipients were off immune-suppressing medicines up to five years later. "There's reason to hope these patients will be off drugs for the rest of their lives," said Dr David Sachs of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston,...

In a first, girl's blood type changes after liver transplant SYDNEY: An Australian girl spontaneously switched blood groups and adopted her donor's immune system following a liver transplant in the first known case of its type, doctors treating her said on Thursday. Demi-Lee Brennan was aged nine and seriously ill with liver failure when she received the transplant, doctors at a top Sydney children's hospital said. Nine months later it was discovered that she had changed blood types and her immune system had switched over to that of the donor after stem cells from the new liver migrated to her...

A YOUNG transplant patient has defied medical science by spontaneously switching blood types and taking on her donor's immune system NSW teenager Demi Brennan is believed to be the first person in the world to completely accept a donated organ to the extent where her immune system entirely changed. Demi, now 15, suffered liver failure and had a liver transplant at the age of nine in 2001. Several months on from the transplant, her doctors at Westmead Children's Hospital say they were shocked to discover her blood type had changed to match the blood type of her deceased male donor....

New York: Scientists in the US have created an artificial rat heart using the cells of baby rats. The breakthrough by researchers at the University of Minnesota offers hope that the day is not far when scientists will be able to create human hearts for transplant.

Link only per protocol www.wwj.com/Transplant-Decision-Too-Late--Teen-Dies/1376284

CHICAGO - A woman in her 30s who is one of the four organ transplant patients infected with HIV and hepatitis was not told that the infected donor was high risk, and had previously rejected another donor "because of his lifestyle," her attorney said. Attorney Thomas Demetrio filed a petition Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of the woman, asking officials to keep a hospital and an organ procurement center from destroying or altering any records involving the donation. "She's really a mess right now," Demetrio said of the Chicago-area woman. "She's still in shock." The patient, identified...

Amid a severe kidney-donor shortage, an idea long considered anathema in the medical community is gaining new currency: payments for people willing to give up a kidney. One of the most outspoken voices on the topic isn't a free-market libertarian, but a prominent transplant surgeon named Arthur Matas. Dr. Matas, 59 years old, is a Canadian-born physician best known for his research at the University of Minnesota. Lately, he's been traveling the country trying to make the case that barring kidney sales is tantamount to sentencing some patients to death. "There's one clear argument for sales," Dr. Matas told a...

Jim Livingston never gave much thought to the bone transplanted in his neck until that Sunday afternoon when his doctor called to tell him about the recall."Do they want it back?" he asked, half-jokingly.Quickly it became clear that this was no laughing matter.Bone allegedly stolen from a corpse had been used in Livingston's neck to relieve the pain of a ruptured disk.With that bit of news, the 44-year-old Weatherford father joined hundreds of others nationwide who are living with the knowledge that they carry bones and tissue taken illegally from cadavers in what has become a bizarre tale of selling...

EXCLUSIVE    NHS sends organs on coaches     By EMMA MORTONAugust 27, 2007   SKINT NHS bosses are using National Express coaches to transport organs for transplants.  And The Sun can reveal it meant an EYE went missing on its way to hospital.It was sent in a box on a coach and disappeared on the way to Northampton General.Hospitals should use private ambulances to carry the organs. But many have axed the contracts to save money.Delivery firm TNT was due to collect the eye — for a cornea transplant — from Northampton bus station where it had been taken...

We have been blessed tenfold by this gift of life. . . . It has been one of the most spiritual experiences we have ever experienced in our lives."     Terri Haverty, whose husband, Dan, donated part of his liver to Bishop William Weigand     The nausea began in 1981, three months after Bishop William Weigand became shepherd to Utah's 80,000 or so Catholics.     Others might just have wolfed down Maalox, but Weigand sensed he needed a doctor. Trouble was, he didn't know one. In fact, the shy bishop didn't know anyone yet, so he turned to Salt Lake...

A doctor has been charged with deliberately hastening the death of a disabled man so that he could harvest his kidneys for another patient, in the first case of its kind in America. The case centres on allegations that Hootan Roozrokh, a transplant surgeon in California, ordered a nurse to administer lethal doses of narcotic painkillers and sedatives to Ruben Navarro, who was terminally ill, after taking him off life support. The man died hours later. Prosecutors claim that Dr Roozrokh, 33, acted without a legitimate medical purpose in his handling of Mr Navarro, 25, who suffered from a neurological...

BOSTON (AP) - Brigham and Women's Hospital has given a surgical team permission to perform partial face transplants to certain disfigured patients, a newspaper reported. Brigham and Women's is the second U.S. hospital to make public its plans to offer the rare medical procedure, The Boston Globe reported. The first hospital was the Cleveland Clinic. To date, only three partial face transplants have been announced worldwide. Two were performed in France, and one in China. Critics argue that it's unethical to expose patients to the risks of a transplant for a non-lifesaving procedure. The newspaper reported that Brigham and Women's...

Victims of chronic back pain were offered fresh hope with news of successful 'spinal transplant' surgery. Spinal discs from accident victims were transplanted into patients with disc degeneration in the cervical spine, the area nearest the neck. All reported improvements in their mobility and a reduction in symptoms such as weakness of the legs and bladder. A report in The Lancet says the pioneering treatment, carried out in China, offers hope for thousands of sufferers of severe disc problems, particularly young people. They often cannot be helped by existing treatments such as spinal fusion - which surgically joins bones in...

Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human 25.03.07   Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.  Chimera: sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells  He...

A bionic eye implant that could help restore the sight of millions of blind people could be available to patients within two years. US researchers have been given the go-ahead to implant the prototype device in 50 to 75 patients. The Argus II system uses a spectacle-mounted camera to feed visual information to electrodes in the eye. Patients who tested less-advanced versions of the retinal implant were able to see light, shapes and movement. "What we are trying to do is take real-time images from a camera and convert them into tiny electrical pulses that would jump-start the otherwise...

Hi all, A dear friend of my wife's and mine is very sick. She has a lung disease that no one can figure out. Her doctors at UCLA have said they have never seen anything like this. The symptoms most closely resemble rheumatoid and lupus, I guess. She's 28, and has emphysema, but has never smoked, nor lived with a smoker. She is on the verge of being put on the lung transplant list, but at her age, her immune system might be too strong for new lungs. Here is the link to her blog if you want to learn...

China to establish bureau to oversee organ transplants Mon Nov 27, 7:41 AM ET China will establish a new government body to oversee the registration and allocation of donated organs for transplants, amid widespread controversy in the field. New regulations on human organ transplants will be issued "soon", mandating the establishment of the new body, Xinhua news agency reported Monday, citing comments by Wang Jianrong, a vice director at the ministry of health. On July 1, China issued regulations on the buying and selling of human organs for transplant following widespread accusations over a black market trade in organs harvested...

"They told me my kidney came from an executed prisoner because you get them fresh that way. From the taking of the kidney, it is only a few hours to get it transplanted in me." So said one of six prisoners recovering from a transplant operation at Huaxi University of Medical Sciences in Chengdu, China, whose comments were secretly recorded on videotape in 1994 by Chinese dissident and former political prisoner Harry Wu. Five other patients in the room had also received a "fresh" kidney that day. It is unlikely that it was a mere coincidence that, one the same...

A southern Ontario woman and her daughter were among 10 people who came together from across North America for a kidney swap doctors are calling the first quintuple kidney transplant. For years 65-year-old Florence Jantzi wished she could donate her kidney to her 40-year-old daughter, Kristine, who has struggled with kidney failure since she was a child. But her daughter was adopted and Jantzi was an incompatible donor. "It looked like it was impossible to make a donation to her, and then we heard about this incompatible kidney transplant program at Johns Hopkins [Hospital] that gave us hope," said Florence,...

The world's first successful womb transplant will take place next year, doctors say today. Dr Giuseppe Del Priore, from New York Downtown Hospital, has been given the go-ahead to carry out the operation and claims to have found a number of potential donors. Dr Del Priore said that while the would-be recipient would have to go through months of counselling and tests, if the right patient was identified today he expected to be able to carry out the procedure next year. If the operation can be perfected for humans, it could help thousands of women with Rokitansky syndrome, a rare...

Veteran broadcaster Alastair Cooke's medical records were forged after his death and then used to sell on his body parts to transplant firms it emerged today. His name was spelt incorrectly and his birthdate was off by 10 years. His Social Security number was also wrong as was the name of his doctor, contact information for a relative, the time and cause of his death. None of that prevented the removal and sale of the 95-year-old's arms and legs. The fate of his pelvis and other tissue is still not known. His daughter Susan Cooke Kittredge said the deception destroyed...

Clinton says Bush years 'hard on science'By Mark Pratt, Associated Press Writer July 23, 2006 BOSTON --New York Sen. Hillary Clinton said Sunday that scientific and medical advances in fields including embryonic stem cell research are being held back by a White House that puts ideology and theology ahead of facts and evidence. "The last 5 1/2 years have been hard on science ... and particularly hard because of the president's veto last week," Clinton told 5,000 attendees at the World Transplant Congress in Boston. **SNIP** Clinton, a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2008, said science is being politicized...

Womb transplants in humans should be possible within five years, say scientists in Sweden ... The procedure would allow women who have functioning ovaries but no womb to carry their own children, and the researchers say they have already been contacted by hundreds of women who are interested in having such a transplant. There are several reasons why a woman can lack a uterus. Some, with a condition called Rokitansky syndrome, are born without a vagina or a uterus. Others can lose their womb, for example through cervical cancer, or if the organ ruptures during childbirth. The only current way...

In light of PA economic crisis, three Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel plan to ask Israel Prison Service to allow them to sell their kidneys, send money to their families Three Palestinian prisoners jailed in a prison in southern Israel said during the weekend that they plan ask the Israel Prison Service (IPS) to allow them to sell their kidneys in order to send money to their children for food, Palestinian sources told the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. IPS officials said in response that they were not familiar with such a request. The Palestinian Authority clerks have not been receiving...