Health Highlights: March 9, 2015

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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

San Francisco Kidney Transplant Chain Patients Recovering

Six kidney transplant patients are recovering after receiving new organs as part of donation chain at a San Francisco hospital.

The transplants were conducted last Thursday and Friday at the California Pacific Medical Center. The patients range in age from 24 to 70 and some of those who had surgery Thursday were already walking around on Friday, said center spokesman Dean Fryer, the Associated Press reported.

Most of the patients are from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Kidney donation chains occur when a person wants to donate a kidney to a relative or friend but their organ is incompatible with that person. Instead, the donor and recipient connect with others in the same situation in order to swap compatible kidneys.

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Compensation Fund for Tainted Steroid Victims Grows to $210 Million

There is now $210 million in a compensation fund for victims of a fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people and sickened more than 750 in 20 states.

The outbreak was traced to a tainted injected steroid made by the New England Compounding Center, which is now bankrupt.

More than $100 million was originally set aside for victims, but recent court documents show the fund received $70 million more in settlements from two companies that did business with the compounding center in Framingham, Mass., according to the Boston Globe, the Associated Press reported.

Payments from the fund could begin going out to victims later this year, according to lawyers.

Two former executives of the compounding center pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, and 12 others also face charges, the AP reported.

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