Baby born from uterus of deceased donor
For the first time, a woman with a transplanted uterus from a deceased donor has given birth to a live and healthy baby, according to a case study from Brazil, published Dec. 4 in The Lancet.
Doctors performed the 10½-hour transplant procedure in September 2016. Five months later, the woman began to experience normal menstrual cycles. Doctors transplanted her fertilized eggs seven months after the surgery and a 6-pound baby girl arrived by caesarean section 35 weeks later.
One in 500 women suffer uterine abnormalities that make pregnancy impossible. In this case, a genetic disease prevented the mother from developing a uterus.
The first successful childbirth following a uterine transplant from a living donor occurred in Sweden in 2013. Since then, doctors have performed 39 living-donor uterine transplants, resulting in 11 live births. Researchers have attempted 10 other uterine transplants from deceased donors in the United States, the Czech Republic, and Turkey. None of them produced a live baby. —J.B.
Legionnaires’ disease outbreak possibly linked to Disneyland
An air-conditioning system at Disneyland may have been the source of a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak last fall near the theme park that sickened 22 people, killing one, a health official testified last week.
The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration in March fined the park $33,000 for not properly cleaning the cooling towers. Disneyland denies being the source of the illnesses, and the state has never said with certainty that the park’s cooling towers, which release mist, were to blame. At a state appeals board hearing last week, an Orange County, Calif., epidemiologist said the towers contained high levels of the Legionella bacteria around the time of the outbreak, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Disneyland pointed out that three of the cases involved people in nearby nursing homes who did not visit the park, but Dr. Matthew Zahn pointed out that infected water droplets can spread 2 to 4 miles. —J.B.
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Posted: Fri, 01/04/2019 05:35 pm"SCIENCE | A DNA study leads to logical and Biblical—but not popular—conclusions about our origins"
SHOCKING!