Brain infections in two kidney transplant patients has health officials re-examining transplant policies, The New York Times reported.

The New York City medical malpractice attorneys and the personal injury and wrongful death lawyers at Queller, Fisher, Washor, Fuchs & Kool represent patients in injured or killed by surgical negligence, hospital infections and other surgical complications.

In this case, the Times reported that the organ donor, a child at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, suffered from seizures and a brain disorder thought to be an autoimmune disease that would not transmit to the organ recipient. However the cause turned out to be a fatal infection and the mistake in diagnosis was not recognized until the transplants had been performed and the two recipients had become critically ill.

The case highlights the lack of a national policy concerning donors with poorly defined neurological disorders -- for now, the system leaves the decision in the hands of individual transplant centers.

Dr. Michael G. Ison, an assistant professor at Northwestern University and a specialist in infectious diseases, said the Mississippi case spurred officials to begin looking at nationwide data to see how often such patients become donors.

Instances of disease transmission from transplants are increasing amid better reporting. Recipients have contracted West Nile virus, HIV, tuberculosis, a rodent virus, parasitic worms and other infections -- in a few cases, even cancers have been transmitted.

Transplant patients are especially vulnerable to serious injury or death from hospital infections or transmitted diseases or disorders because the drugs needed to prevent organ rejection work by suppressing the immune system.

"This is a difficult topic, because organs are really scarce and patients who need a transplant are typically quite ill and need a transplant quickly," said Dr. Eileen Farnon, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "(S)ometimes it's hard to do all the testing that one could possibly think of for all the infections out there."

More than 100,000 people are on a waiting list for a transplant, and 9,000 die each year, the organ network says.