WEST

TEXAS POLICE OFFICER DIES AFTER BEING HIT BY PARTNER

AUSTIN, Texas – A police officer died early yesterday after she got out of her patrol car to chase a suspect on foot and was run over by her partner.

Officer Amy Donovan was on patrol late Saturday when she and her partner, Officer Adrian Valdovino, saw someone engaged in “suspicious activity,” said Police Chief Stan Knee. Donovan jumped from the car to question the man but he fled on foot. The suspect escaped. Officer Valdovino put the car in reverse to try to stop the man and the car struck Donovan, the chief said.

Donovan, 37, is the first female Austin Police Department officer to die in the line of duty, officials said. She had four children and had left a career as an investment banker to become an officer, Chief Knee said. She graduated in the top 10% of her cadet class in June. Officer Valdovino was one of her classmates.

He said the department has started an investigation that will include a review of the way officers handle foot pursuits. Officer Valdovino was placed on leave until the investigation is completed.

– Associated Press

HEALTH

OHIO CLINIC PLANS HUMAN FACE TRANSPLANT

CLEVELAND – The Cleveland Clinic says it is the first institution to receive review board approval to perform a human facial transplant for someone severely disfigured by burns or disease. Several independent medical teams around the world also are pursuing the procedure. The Cleveland Clinic said its approval on October 15 followed 10 months of debate on medical, ethical, and psychological issues.

It has no current patients or donors for the procedure.

“We are at this point ready to begin screening patients,” said Dr. Maria Siemionow, the hospital’s director of plastic surgery research and training in microscopic surgery, who advocated the procedure.

Doctors at the clinic said finding an appropriate donor cadaver for the facial skin and underlying tissue might be more difficult than choosing a patient, which could take up to two years. “It may not happen in our life, or it may happen sooner than you expect,” Dr. Siemionow said. She said she will tell patients there is as much as a 50% chance of failure because of tissue rejection or other complications.

A central question in debate over the procedure has been whether patients should be subjected to risks of transplant failure and life-threatening complications from anti-rejection drugs for an operation that is not lifesaving.

Dr. Siemionow said she wants to start with a relatively simple procedure that would involve transplanting only the skin and underlying fat. The patient’s own muscles shape the face, so the patient would not take on the appearance of the donor, she said.

– Associated Press

NEW VACCINE SHOWS PROMISE AGAINST DIARRHEAL DISEASE

A new vaccine against rotavirus, the diarrheal infection that kills millions of children worldwide, doesn’t appear to raise the risk of serious bowel blockages that caused a previous vaccine to be pulled from the market five years ago, doctors reported yesterday.

The new vaccine, Rotarix, was recently licensed in Mexico and is expected to go on sale there this year. Its maker, Belgium-based GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, plans to seek similar approvals throughout Latin America, Asia, and Europe, and to launch a study in the United States aimed at getting it approved for American infants.

Doctors tested the vaccine in more than 63,000 infants in Latin America and Finland, and reported results yesterday at an American Society for Microbiology meeting. Six babies who got the vaccine developed the bowel problem, as did seven in a comparison group who got a dummy vaccine, suggesting no extra risk beyond what would normally occur.

A safe vaccine is critically needed, said Dr. James Hughes of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rotavirus hospitalizes tens of thousands of babies and toddlers in America and kills several dozen, but is a much more serious problem in poor countries.

– Associated Press