Nation & World briefing
LONDON -- For the first time doctors have successfully transplanted a vein grown with a patient's own stem cells in another example of producing human body parts in the lab.
In this case, the patient was a 10-year-old girl in Sweden who was suffering from a severe vein blockage to her liver. In March, the girl's doctors decided to make her a new blood vessel to bypass the blocked vein instead of using one of her own or considering a liver transplant.
They took a 31/2-inch section of vein from a deceased donor, which was stripped of all its cells, leaving just a hollow tube. Using stem cells from the girl's bone marrow, scientists grew millions of cells to cover the vein, a two-week process. The new blood vessel was then transplanted into the patient.
Because the procedure used her own cells, the girl did not have to take any drugs to stop her immune system from attacking the new vein, as is usually the case in transplants involving donor tissue.
Suchitra Sumitran-Holgersson of the University of Gothenburg, one of the study's authors, and her colleagues published the results of their work online Thursday, June 14, in the British medical journal Lancet. The work was paid for by the Swedish government.
Bishops continue to fight mandate
ATLANTA -- The nation's Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday promised steadfast opposition to President Barack Obama's mandate that birth control be covered by health insurance, saying it is one
Bishops insisted repeatedly that they had no partisan agenda. They said they were forced into action by state and federal policies that they said would require them to violate their beliefs in order to maintain the vast public-service network the church has built over a century or longer.
"It is not about parties, candidates or elections as others have suggested," said Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, chairman of the bishops' religious-liberty committee. "The government chose to pick a fight with us."
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Vein grown with patient's stem cells is transplanted