Kidney recipient dies after contracting virus

Kidney recipient diesafter contracting virus
BALTIMORE -- A Maryland woman who received a kidney transplant last month died after testing positive for the West Nile virus, state health officials said.
The source of the infection is unclear, however, because initial tests for the virus on the organ donor were negative, the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Wednesday.
The woman, who died Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, was 55 and from St. Mary's County. Officials would not release her name.
The transplant took place Sept. 6, and the woman was discharged from the hospital Sept. 14. She was readmitted Sept. 16.
The department, the American Red Cross and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating the possibility of transmission through blood transfusions or from outside exposure.
"This is a case that still needs to be worked up," said Georges Benjamin, secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. "We're still very early in that work up."
Benjamin said the Red Cross is trying to identify all individuals who may have donated blood products that the woman received.
Gore blasts Bushon economic policy
WASHINGTON -- Al Gore says he hasn't made a decision about his own political plans, but he has a very clear position on the economic policy of President Bush, who defeated him in 2000.
"America's economy is in big trouble and I'm worried our current approach is failing us," Gore said Wednesday at the Brookings Institution. The former vice president said Bush is lost in an economic wilderness, "racing in the wrong direction" while critical domestic issues are drowned out by international affairs in the final weeks of the midterm campaign.
Gore, who is considering whether to run for the White House again, said the president should focus as intently on the faltering economy as he has on foreign affairs.
In his second speech in just over a week harshly criticizing the Bush administration, Gore called for a short-term stimulus program that would include extended unemployment benefits and help for small businesses "to jolt the U.S. economy out of stagnation." He also suggested the replacement of some members of the Bush economic team.
Family wants a banon perfume at schools
PIKEVILLE, Ky. -- Kristian Childers hasn't been to school since she reported that a campus bully sprayed her in the face with perfume a year ago, causing a severe asthma attack that landed her in the hospital.
The 16-year-old said she is afraid to return to Shelby Valley High School until administrators ban perfume, cologne and other smelly aerosol sprays that could be used as weapons against asthmatics. She is being educated at home while her family pushes for the ban.
"It's not just making me sick, but other people with asthma," she said. "I don't want anyone to go through what I've been through."
The school board voted down a proposal Sept. 17 to ban students from bringing cologne, body spray or perfume to school, saying they want to protect the rights of students.
"You can't make everyone else's lives miserable just to accommodate one child," said John Blackburn, a Pikeville banker and member of the school board.
Childers' stepfather, Tim Belcher, who is an Elkhorn City attorney, said he intends to sue the school district over what he sees as a safety issue. State and federal law requires school districts to provide for the special needs of children with disabilities.
Forbidden kiss
TEHRAN, Iran -- A cultural official was taken into custody for failing to arrest an Iranian actress and the young actor she publicly kissed on the cheek, Iranian media reported Wednesday.
Socializing between unrelated men and women is banned by Iran's Islamic laws, and public kissing between men and women is considered taboo.
Mohammed Ali Pakdel, a cultural official in Yazd in central Iran, was jailed Tuesday, the daily Etemad reported. He was later released on $6,250 bail.
Pakdel was accused of failing to act on an arrest order issued after actress Gowhar Kheirandish and actor Ali Zamani shook hands and kissed on the cheek during a public festival in Yazd.
Pakdel denied the accusation, saying the judicial order was issued after the pair had already left Yazd, Etemad reported.
Associated Press