Edward Kennedy suffers seizure

US Senator Edward Kennedy is "resting comfortably" and is undergoing tests at a Boston hospital, where he was taken after a seizure, his office said in a statement.

"It appears that Senator Kennedy experienced a seizure. He is undergoing a battery of tests at Massachusetts General Hospital to determine the cause of the seizure.

"Senator Kennedy is resting comfortably, and it is unlikely we will know anything more for the next 48 hours," the statement said.

Mr Kennedy, 76, was taken to a hospital in Cape Cod, Massachusetts early on Saturday morning and was transferred to a bigger hospital in Boston.

Early reports suggested he had experienced a stroke.

The long-serving Massachusetts senator is a leading liberal voice in the United States who has actively campaigned for Barack Obama in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Mr Kennedy had preventive surgery in Boston in October to unclog a partially blocked carotid artery in his neck.

The blockage was discovered during a routine check of Mr Kennedy's back and spine, doctors said. A blocked carotid artery can lead to a stroke and death, they said.

Mr Kennedy has suffered from back problems since a plane crash in 1964 in which the pilot and one of his aides were killed and the senator was pulled from the wreckage with a back injury, punctured lung, broken ribs and internal bleeding.

The youngest brother of assassinated US President John F Kennedy, Edward Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1962 and currently serves as chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labour and Pensions.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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