Doctors perform the first quintuple kidney transplant
Three men and two women received kidneys simultaneously last Tuesday at the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Transplant Center in Baltimore. Five women donated their kidneys to the recipients. The kidneys were removed from 7:15 to 11 a.m., and the recipients received their kidneys from 1 to 5:15 p.m.
According to The Associated Press, Johns Hopkins hospital officials said there have been triple transplants before, but this procedure was a first.
It took 12 surgeons, 11 anesthesiologists and 18 nurses to complete the 10-hour operation.
The 10 participants are from Canada, Maine, Maryland, West Virginia, Florida and California.
One of the recipients had been waiting on a donor list for a dead person’s kidney, but all five of the transplants performed were from live bodies, which doctors say have a higher transplant success rate, according to the AP.
Source: The Associated Press
-Compiled by Assistant City Editor Stephanie Nehmens
Officers use taser gun on UCLA student in library
A 23-year-old University of California, Los Angeles student was shocked with a taser stun gun after he did not provide officers with student identification at Powell Library on UCLA’s campus, according to the AP.
The incident occurred around 11 p.m. last Tuesday after officers did a routine check for student identification in the library’s computer lab.
The student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, reportedly refused to show the officers his identification card.
As police escorted him out of the library, Tabatabainejad encouraged nearby students to join his resistance against the officers. The officers used the stun gun on him when a crowd began to gather.
He was then arrested on suspicion of resisting and obstructing a police officer and was later released.
The incident, which was recorded on another student’s camera phone, showed Tabatabainejad on the floor screaming.
UCLA Police Department spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein told the AP that officers routinely check for student IDs in order to ensure their safety during late-night hours.
Source: The Associated Press
-Compiled by Senior Staff Writer Melissa Deleon
A network of college students has launched a new campaign to improve poor nations’ access to drugs invented in the labs of leading U.S. research universities.
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, whose members met in Philadelphia last month, is calling for reform in the way universities license biomedical discoveries to drug companies. Among other things, it wants universities in advance to require companies to set much lower prices on drugs discovered at a university and to allow cheaper generic versions to be sold in the developing world.
University labs are key to drug development, as are premium prices and patent protections. Many early stage compounds or concepts that pharmaceutical companies turn into profitable drugs come from academia, often supported by the tax-funded National Institutes of Health. The network said it is focusing on top NIH-grant recipients, including the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Harvard University, Emory University and Duke University.
The network of a few hundred students was formed after students at Yale in 2001 objected to the university’s license to Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. for a Yale-invented AIDS drug, since marketed as Zerit. That effort included student protests and pressure from the Nobel Prize-winning aid organization Doctors Without Borders.
Medical students are among the leaders, reflecting what one activist called a growing demand for responsible industry conduct in their chosen profession.
-Thomas Ginsberg, MCT Campus
