Man's face donated for transplant
BROOKLINE, Mass. (AP) – The wife of a Massachusetts man whose tissue was donated for the nation's second face transplant said her husband told her before heart transplant surgery that he wanted to donate his organs if he didn't survive the operation.
Susan Whitman told The Boston Globe for a story in Wednesday's editions that she was surprised, however, when organ bank officials asked if she would approve of the donation of Joseph Helfgot's face.
Whitman and their four children held a conference call and quickly agreed it was the "right thing to do."
Helfgot, 60, learned to appreciate the value of life from his Holocaust survivor parents, friends and family said.
"It's easy to sign up and say you are an organ donor," Whitman said. "It's another to have your family understand and facilitate that. It's painful and it takes strength and a will to do it."
Helfgot never woke up after his April 5 heart transplant, and the face operation took place on April 9, the day before Helfgot's funeral.
"He would be happy to know he went out with a bang," she said.
The recipient's identity hasn't been released, but Whitman said she would one day like to meet the man who received her husband's nose, roof of his mouth, upper lip, facial skin, muscles and nerves. Doctors have said the recipient will not look like the donor because his bone structure is different.
Helfgot was a New York City native who founded MarketCast, one of Hollywood's leading research companies.
Whitman said she went public with her story because she hoped to inspire others to become organ donors.
U.S. Immigration criticized
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – Four jurors who acquitted an Egyptian college student of federal explosives charges criticized U.S. immigration authorities on Wednesday for trying to deport him, saying it was a "blatant disregard" of their verdict.
The jurors were among 12 who found Youssef Megahed, 23, not guilty April 3 of possessing explosives prosecutors claimed could have been used to build a destructive bomb or rocket.
Three days after Megahed walked free, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him as he left a Tampa store with his father. A document ordering Megahed to appear in immigration court said he was being deported based on the circumstances that resulted in the federal charges, said his attorney, Adam Allen. Megahed is being held pending a hearing that has yet to be scheduled.
"This sure looks and feels like some sort of 'double jeopardy' even if it doesn't precisely fit the legal definition of that prohibited practice," the jurors said in a statement. "More troublesome is the government's seeming blatant disregard for the will of its own people."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Ivan L. Ortiz-Delgado said in an e-mail that the immigration charges Megahed faces "differ significantly from those charged in his criminal case." He didn't provide details, citing privacy laws.
Lincoln stamps to be auctioned
DALLAS (AP) – It's the philatelic version of the Land of Lincoln: A collection of some 10,000 stamps, all featuring the nation's 16th president, is going on the auction block this week.
The collection, painstakingly amassed by an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, carries a pre-sale price estimate of more than $2 million, according to Dallas-based Spink Shreves Galleries, which is holding the auction Friday in New York City.
The stamps, some from as far back as the 1860s, all come from the U.S. or its current or former possessions, including Guam and the Philippines. It includes everything from preproduction items like proofs to stamps that were affixed to envelopes and sent around the world.
"If you're a Lincoln stamp collector, you'd be very interested in this collection," said Rick Miller, senior editor at Sidney, Ohio-based Linn's Stamp News. "It's a great Lincoln collection."
The sale comes just weeks after the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, and Charles Shreve, auction house president, says it has generated worldwide interest.
Among the highlights is a proof of a block of eight 90-cent stamps of Lincoln with his image accidentally printed upside-down. The block, one of only two known, is expected to sell for $30,000 to $50,000, Shreve said.
"Some guy just happened to take one of those sheets and slip it in (to the printing press) upside down," said the owner of the collection, William J. Ainsworth.
Ainsworth, 67, who lives in Roswell, Ga., said that as a child he would watch his father work on his stamp collection. His father died when he was 12, and his mother later gave the collection to him.
That collection was destroyed in a flood in the mid-1970s and Ainsworth's interest in stamps temporarily cooled. A couple of years later, though, then-postmaster general Benjamin F. Bailar, whom he had met through a friend, helped rekindle his interest, suggesting he give his collection a focus.
For Ainsworth, who admired Lincoln and was then living in Illinois, the choice seemed obvious.
"The whole thing just came together," said Ainsworth, who has exhibited the collection throughout the world.
Ainsworth, a retired partner at accounting firm KPMG, said stamp collecting provided him with an escape from his high-stress job. Parting with something that has brought him so much joy is bittersweet, he said, but it's also exciting to see the interest it's generated.
"It's my time to pass it on," he said.