Slashdot Mirror
First Face Transplant
mriya3 writes to tell us the BBC is reporting that surgeons in France have performed the first ever face transplant. The medical team, led by Jean-Michel Dubernard, transplanted live tissue to a 36-year old woman whose face had been destroyed by a dog. From the article: "It has been technically possible to carry out such a transplant for some years, with teams in the US, the UK and France researching the procedure. [...] But the ethical concerns of a face transplant, and the psychological impact to the patient of looking different has held teams back."
Science takes its cues from Nip/Tuck. How frightening!
You see the look on my face, and yet you keep talking.
Was it John Travolta's or Nicholas Cage's?
I wouldn't want either.
A live person is missing a face. A dead person doesn't need theirs any more. Where's the problem?
And how could the "psychological impact" be worse than not havin a face? The patient is going to "look different" no matter what is done.
Putting a new spin on the proverbial: "Who am I?"
On a computer or under a hood.
The team of surgeons deny that The Silence of the Lambs played any influence in their technique.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
And the "psychological impact" to the patient of looking different?? Looking different from a hideously scarred accident victim? Isn't that why they want surgery in the first place?
This seems to me like a story desperately in search of sensationalism.
But when will they be able to tranplant a working brain into a Slashdot Troll?
Now I can be good looking and smart!
Michael Jackson is in france this week for an undisclosed medical procedure.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
From 2002, and 2004. I'm a little suprised this happened in France first, as the 2004 article expressed interest in moving forward with this at the University of Louisville.
"Powers. I have them."
The donor has to be alive! How long till someone wakes up in a bath of ice with no face?
I've heard the rumors of organ snatchers where you wake up in a bathtub with stitches and one kidney. Should we incredibly good looking people fear knife weilding hoardes of uglypeople hell bent on revenge?
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
they can't reconnect the nerves can they? Wouldn't it feel like having a thick layer of dead skin on your face all the time, I mean I'd want to pull it off continually.
Bin laden got away from afghanistan with no problems. Now he's mascarading as Dick Cheney.
The doctors said they replaced the lips, nose, and chin. Sounds like half the people in Hollywood if you ask me.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/Don't believe it!
:)
A revolutionary medical technique allows an undercover agent to take the physical appearance of a major criminal and infiltrate his organization.
Oh wait, is this a movie?
sucks to get your face wrecked by a dog......but what sucks more, that or waiting in line at dmv and then explaining that yes, this is your real face while trying to get a new picture.
But,but,but...what if the brain-dead patient suddenly wakes up and decides to kill everyone who knew about the operation, even though he wasn't awake to know who they were ?
--Concerned movie freak.
I think growing human parts on animals is our best bet (like this mouse with a human ear on it). However mice would be too small for a whole face. How creepy would it be to drive by a herd of cows with human faces growing all over them???
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
"The ethical concerns of a face transplant...."
Someone's already supposedly cloned a human embryo. I wouldn't worry about facial transplants too much.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Even if you got a face transplant, you wouldn't look like the face of the donor. Your bone structure etc is what makes up most of your appearance. Although, you wouldn't like you use to. So I don't see how ethics would really take a roll in this matter.
The ethical considerations have been raised because, apparently, the team of surgeons attempted this risky procedure without exhausting all the other options. Now, I'm not going to say that this woman shouldn't have a face transplant if she's aware that the face might rot and fall off, leaving her even more damaged, and that even in the best of all possible outcomes she'll be on drugs that will drastically increast her chance of cancer for the rest of her life, but if the doctors talked her into a face transplant without trying other solutions first, it's possible that they were in it solely to enhance their own reputations.
http://www.jerriblank.com/swcep205.html
"Eyes without a Face" by Billy Idol was heard playing in the background of the operating room.
This was followed by "The Real Me" by the Who and the Pixies' "Broken Face."
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
It seems strange that they would have held back on this kind of proceedure because of concerns with psychological reactions to looking different. It would seem that there would be a number of people out there who would take a whole new face over the remains of one chewed off, blown off, or burned off...
Or maybe there is more concern over the situation depicted in the film, "Face off"?
For the people involved in the reconstruction, I hope it works out well.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I found an interesting article here from 2004 about the future of face transplants. Apparently they take the face off of a cadavre and then surgically put it on a live person, which makes sense, but as another poster referenced, reminds me of something like silence of the lambs. But if I had to make the choice of having no face/seriously f*d up face, or someone else's...I can't even be sure what I would choose :o
r ansplant/
chin up.
Some other reading on the matter: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/05/26/face.t
Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
Here we go. Time for all of the inane "Face/Off" replies as though no one else would have possibly thought of it. I guess that we should all just laugh hysterically and use the idiotic TripMaster Monkey anime smiles to make the Face/Off posters feel complete.
[holding sides laughing] Oh, GOD! "Face/Off"! I would never have thought of that! Oh, that is SO-O-O-O funny! I'm laughing too hard! Oh, look! Another reference! Please! Stop![/holding sides laughing]
There. I hope the "Face/Off" people feel better now.
Go ahead. Mod me down. The really sad part what I've said is 100% true. Then again, Slashdot replies often don't care about truth.
What is so difficult about a face but we can grow other parts.
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1107/features/body.htm
As far as doctor's being up against any wall if they have to choose whether or not to completely change somebody's face, well, all I have to say to that is money talks and there's always someone with open ears, if you know what I mean. Besides, have you seen any of the before/after shots on that website (google is your friend) that shows the celebs with overdone plastic surgery? Jeebuz, the doctors that *did* those jobs *should* be up against a wall somewhere, man! ;)
Even if this was a full face transplant the person would not look exactly like the donor. The reason is because of the different underlying bone structure. So the person who gets the full face transplant will not look like the donor and they will not look like themselves. They will look more like a cross between the two. Also I doubt that they would take the face of someone who is not braindead and whos family has not given permission to turn off life support after the transplant is done, just like they do for most transplants now.
This could be urban legend, but a few years back some Mexican drug lord tried to get a face transplant and didn't survive long.
Anyone else remember this?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I don't think (at least from my cultural background) that there is a concern with transplanting a face--it is just like any other donated organ. However, in many cultures the face has great significance that is deeply meshed into the sociological values and even linguistics of their lives. Many Native American languages, for example use the concept of the face to identify everything. For example the phrase --ru li che'--in the native American language of K'ekchi' literally translates as 'face of the tree', but what it is really talking about is 'fruit'. If you are familiar with someone, you would say --ninau ru-- meaning "I know his face". In such cultures the removal of a face removes identity. In this case you destroy the identity of one, and replace the other--which would have deep psychology implications to these types of cultures.
So I think the problem here is not whether it is right or wrong, legal or illegal, but what is morally reprehensible to society. And since this is an issue that really hasn't been traversed before, I think it only predictable that there be hesitation to undergo such a procedure.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
The 38-year-old French patient from the northern French town of Valenciennes underwent extensive counselling before her operation, which is believed to have lasted at least five hours...
From the no hyperbole dept..
Apparently they take the face off of a cadavre and then surgically put it on a live person, which makes sense, but as another poster referenced, reminds me of something like silence of the lambs.
Funny. Where do you think most organs for transplants come from? I'm pretty sure there aren't any living heart donors. It's OK to accept hearts, kidneys, lungs and corneas from cadavers, but faces cross the line. Not that I disagree with you, but it's interesting how our perceptions are tainted like that.
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I'm guessing these face donors won't have open caskets at their funerals....
I think not.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4816435/
Orlan is an artist who has taken facial reconstruction to the extremes.
Health Insurance Quotes
What happens if the immuno-suppressant drugs stop working and there isn't another donor available? (would it be best not to watch hockey, in case there was a face off?)
for a more accurate description of the technique.
Given that skin cells are constantly being shedded and regenerating, wouldn't this (slowly) transform back into the recipiant's original face?
Or would a skin sample from the transplant area show different DNA for all time?
I'm genuinely curious. Is there a doctor in the house?
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Seriously - what is this going to mean for the terrorism fanatics in the UK,US and AU governments ?
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Don't ridicule the idea until you get government out of insurance which is the reason why the poor can't afford it.
/. posters so often have the most odious opinions?
Ah, another libertarian throws off an irrelevant smack at government for keeping health care from the poor.
Canada solved their health care problem very fairly and affordably, thanks. What you want is for government to abandon the poor to the tender mercies of the health corporations. Then the poor will have no options.
Not employed at a rich, caring corporation? Got a long term condition? You're screwed.
Why do the most prolific
There are over 100 comments here, but not a single one mentioning pictures.
Am I seriously the only one who wants to see before and after pics?
You can have it. Can't get chicks with it.
"and the psychological impact to the patient of looking different has held teams back."
I would have thought that the patient would have had to confront that problem already.
I dont see this being any different to major organ transplant, just the media having else to report.
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I think you're right the /. motto be changed, but may I suggest, "Slashdot.org: Stories like Digg, Discussions that don't suck."?
/. isn't the place to be. But if you want spirited, intelligent discussion of news, /. is awesome. Given, /. has it's share of trolls and bigots, but no matter how much some people hate on it, the moderation system does take care of them -- much like it's taking care of you now.
If you want up-to-the-nanosecond news,
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Add [/.] to your user name for the Slashdot Clan, haha.
Before we invaded Iraq, I used to hear rumors (on Fox News most likely) that Saddam had people who had reconstructive surgery in order to pose as him.
I don't hear any of that non-sense now. Did we actually catch Saddam, or one of his Clones?
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
I don't understand where this "will I look like the donor?" comes from. It's just a bunch of skin, maybe a bit of musculature? Even if you have the wrinkles (from the musculature) that the donor has, it will be on your own - completely different - skull. I don't see how you'd look anything like the donor. Nor would you look exactly like you did before - but you'd probably look better than being featureless and/or heavily scarred.
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The medical team, led by Jean-Michel Dubernard, transplanted live tissue to a 36-year old woman whose face had been destroyed by a dog.
She only thought it was a dog that destroyed her face. In reality, it was Chuck Norris who destroyed her face.
A. They always win the face-off!
(I did try to put "(ice-)" before "hockey" in the title, but the damn' character limit got me...)
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
Wow. Intelligent discussion? You haven't been around here much, have you? "Intelligence" and "People who act half their age to pretend they know twice as much as they do" are very different things.
No problem - if it ain't on ice, it ain't hockey.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
I guess the French have found a new way to save face.
I'm so ashamed, mod me down.
[signature]
"All your face are belong to us!"
Gives a new meaning to a faceplant.
This totally changes the meaning of the Chinese/Japanese "saving face" concept. I can understand replacing a face that's been eaten by a dog, but it's only a matter of time before the wealthy are buying people's faces. I can see it now: "oh, honey. that young girl is so pretty. I must have her face, buy it for me won't you?"
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
I hardly think this sort of story needs to be broadcast up to the nanosecond. In fact, despite WW3 breaking out, a killer asteroid approaching or the next wave of killer flu pandemic, I think there isn't much news that warrants your purported speed of delivery. And then still, it won't be digg with the first story on those sorts of things. It will be a massive news organization like Reuters.
So, stop being the tragic person who needs to be different to seek attention. Just read both sites and be done with it.
If you're setting there hitting refresh on digg every 5 seconds, why aren't you doing any work! I'd fire you immediately if you were my employee - actually, you may be... time to do the rounds.
So if she stops taking the drugs, will her body eat her new face? That's just nasty. :\
I grew up with one-quarter of my face missing in action. When I was two, doctors removed the upper left quadrant of my face including the eyelids and the skin down to the bottom of my nose. Twenty operations and fifteen years later I finally got working (but not very pretty) eyelids again. The person undergoing the face transplant has already suffered the psychological impact of loosing their original face and the impact of being treated like some kind of monster. The trauma of getting a different face can't possibly be any worse.
Eyes without a face!
How bad would it suck to reject your own face?
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
Something like that.
You're parsing wrong. It's the operation that lasted at least five hours.
Nobody wants to be an organ donor. It just seems like the right thing to say. Organ donors are for people with no faith at all. What if they figure out a way to bring you back fromt he dead? And now I don't got no eyes. Ain't this a bitch! Back from the dead and I can't see shit.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
What about maintenance? Supposing a poor person could afford a procedure, how on earth would they pay for prescriptions? Prices have skyrocketed in the past few decades, meanwhile, Merck spends over 60% of their budget on Marketing, mostly in telling the middle and upper classes what designer drugs they should ask their doctor about, as well as random kickbacks for doctors to prescribe their brand exclusively.
What about malpractice insurance? This is probably the #1 cause of inflated health care prices, our overly-litigious society is effectively killing services, private and governmental, while trial lawyers are cleaning up.
It's not all the government's fault, Captain Industry.
--- What
"Help control the pet population... have your pets spayed and neutered!"
Wrong, you would still have to pay to go to a walk-in clinic. I'm Canadian and I was in a different province and got sick and had to go to emergency and was charged $300 for 1 day's stay in emergency. This was all worked out eventually between the provinces, but I was originally billed for it, and it was a hassle.
But the original poster is lying because the story doesn't jive. Stomach flu wouldn't kill you, and nurses are more than able to hook people up to an IV which is the only treatment that you can do to someone with the stomach flu, to replace lost fluids. It's a virus, not a bacteria, so the only thing you can do is wait it out. You don't need a doctor to evaluate you to get put on an IV.
MRIs are on the order of months. I have a friend in Montreal whose MRI for a gallbladder problem was postponed for 3 months recently. People's cancer treatment were postponed for 6 weeks in Toronto. Even the high priority queue is backed up and its a serious problem, but you don't have anywhere to go. At least in the US you can spend money to save your life, if you have the money.
Overall, Canada's health care system is okay but its not a Godsend. I am living in California now with Kaiser HMO and it is roughly twice as good as Canada's health care system. I truly feel sorry for people without medical insurance because they will go bankrupt if they get sick though.
I think the problem is looking normal but different. While difficult, humans are built to deal with trauma. Having a horribly disfigured face may very well be easier for the psyche to deal with than having a face that is similar but not quite the one you're used to. Just look at those who've taken facial plastic surgery too far. Nobody would call MJ or that Barbie chick normal, but I'd bet it was some sort of psychosis which led them to make such extreme modifications which in turn spurred on their psychosis. Even "normal" facial modifications, including facial piercings, should require in depth psychological counselling. But most plastic surgeons only make a show of trying to disuade their clients.
Existing technologies are sufficient to reconstruct the face without the need for immunosuppressants for the rest of the recipient's life.
Skin grafts are sufficient to construct a working face, but they're not sufficient to construct a face that will be presentable to a patient's employer's customers. Many customers would be turned off looking at some of the people I saw in a Discovery Health special about face transplantation.
A skull face would be kewel!
First cloning and now face transplants... His plan is coming to fruition.
Oops...sorry, wrong website.
if it ain't on ice, it ain't hockey.
Given the popularity of field hockey in many countries outside the frigid zone, your statement is horse hockey. Let me guess: you're either Canadian or Canadien.
Now I can really be a woman when I get my sex change done :D
Did you know that in the US in 2006, more children will grow up in homes that have declared bankruptcy than will grow up with divorced parents?
Did you also know that as of 2004, over 50% of all bankruptcies in the US are directly related to a major medical illness somewhere in the family?
50% Medical Bankruptcy article (2005)
Article stating number of bankruptcies in 1999 (~ 500,000 families)
Article stating number of bankruptcies in 2001 (~ 1.5 million families)
--- What
and suddenly identity theft becomes more and more apealing... i can steal your id your credit AND your face.
The talk was of a high failure rate. What happens if there is tissue rejection or there isn't sufficent blood flow? We are talking significant tissue loss and potentially leaving the patient in far worse shape than they were before, likely dead. They may be trading scar tissue for something closer to that shot in Face Off showing exposed muscle. How long can you survive like that? How many people would have face lifts if the survival rate was 50/50? Is it right to do cosmetic sugery that has a high failure rate and the potential for such tragic results? Remember the doctors oath about do no harm? For a purely cosmetic proceedure the risk is still far too high and would seem to go against the fundimental tenants of being a physician.
This is old news.. I saw a documentary on this the other week on FX. They called it somthing like Nip and Tucker or Tip and Nucker... NipTuck.. maybe that was it..
That my face is GONE! Ahhhhh. If a woman took my face she would then be a very ugly woman, with a beard.
Stem cell or cloning comment here. Why can't I have my body grown again, just scramble the brain. He would be just like me minus the self awareness. Most people couldn't tell the differene though and I might be harvested instead of my clone.
they tried this on niptuck about 2 weeks ago and it didn't work ;-)
I hardly think this sort of story needs to be broadcast up to the nanosecond. In fact, despite WW3 breaking out, a killer asteroid approaching or the next wave of killer flu pandemic, I think there isn't much news that warrants your purported speed of delivery. And then still, it won't be digg with the first story on those sorts of things. It will be a massive news organization like Reuters.
/. for it's lack of nanosecond reporting. Nor did I say news should be reported as such. My point is, Slashdot is a good site for the discussion, not the news. People who bash /. because it's got slower stories than Digg are idiots because that's not what /. is about.
/., I probably never will. I guess I'll make my opposition to posts like the GP a little more blatant next time, sheesh.
Never did I say I dislike
So, stop being the tragic person who needs to be different to seek attention. Just read both sites and be done with it.
If you're setting there hitting refresh on digg every 5 seconds, why aren't you doing any work! I'd fire you immediately if you were my employee - actually, you may be... time to do the rounds.
For the record, I don't read digg, and unless the discussion gets really crappy here on
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Especially if they already know you! :-)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
... right off your head."
If we start facing the sort of crime implied in this song, it kinda makes Robert Hunter seem a little prophetic, no?
slice of liver...
half a kidney...
(drools)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
And in the US, if you can't remember somebody's name, and don't necessarily have a lot of respect for him, you refer to him as "what's his face"...
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
A. They always win the face-off!
(I did try to put "(ice-)" before "hockey" in the title, but the damn' character limit got me...)
Well, ice- sure beats tonsil- given the circumstances.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Next new medical procedure will be Ass transplants.
Hey if they use Ass tissue to repair someone's face
then they truly would have their head up their ass?
(might explain a few things on capital hill.....)
How different is a person going to look with the skin of another person? Doesn't bone structure define more of a look than the skin itself? And really, how bad can it be to look a little like someone else compared to HAVING NO FACE AT ALL. Geez.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Dipshit. Apparently, you are way to stupid to get an education.
Since So click right here. Google will help you. You will find that Medical bills account for a fair number of bankruptcy (which suddenly became difficult).
...without pictures
Your momma's so ugly she had a face transplant...and the face rejected her.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
Thanks. He died in 1997 "after undergoing extensive plastic surgery to change his appearance."
:)
Did I just start an urban legend?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Having had a big swath of my forehead flesh disconnected from its nerves in a car accident, I can tell you that you get used to it. And, no, you don't want to pull it off. When it first happens, it's an injury and you do all you can to avoid touching it altogether. After it heals, you're used to not messing with it. By that point, you're accustomed to the way it feels anyway.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
How is this different from just regular old reconstructive facial plastic surgery or whatever you want to call it? What about someone with a severe cleft palate that has reconstructive surgery? Their face may not look the same after the surgery (better, natch), but not necessarily a 'face transplant'. Sounds like a term designed to whip up some sort of frenzy. It doesn't change what it really is, reconstructive surgery.
This is horrible! What are Hannibal, B.A., and Murdoch going to do without Face?
Science takes its cues from Nip/Tuck. How frightening!
no, from Tony Hawk, after all, they just did a faceplant...
Karma, karma burning bright...
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
That's no big deal, most people on either coast fail to see any moral distinction between the two anyway.
And you do? I'm not on either coast, but I don't see that much difference between killing innocent Iraqis for God and/or to retaliate for past injustices and killing innocent Americans for Alla and/or to retaliate for past injustices. For that matter, I don't see that much difference between torturing people because they might be plotting against your pseudo-Islamic regime and torturing people because they might be plotting against your pseudo-Christian regime. Or keeping people in secret prisons in your own country, vs. keeping them in secret prisons in other countries...
Oh wait, I've drifted into confusing Bin Laden and Sadam again. I don't know how they got so muddled in my mind.
--MarkusQ
Really curious.
....This article from september http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/1 9/175236&tid=103&tid=14/
Purple, because ice cream has no bones.
> You'd have to hope for DNA or some other, more sure way of identifying the person.
Like fingerprints?
Virg
How can someone report on a revolutionary FACE transplant and not feature before and after photos? We are all dying (no pun intended) to see the "hybrid" face.
cpeterso
Ironic it was the French who did this first...
Eyes Without a Face
"Finally I can get back my 80's face"
Don't ya hate it when the correct spelling of your favorite screen name is taken?
Hand xeno-transplants were considered an intermediate step between organ transplants and face tranplants. The largest count I've seen in google is 22 attempts and guess there may have been several dozen more. The first was nortorious for being the first and on an ex-con who stopped taking rejection drugs.
The hand is non-vital organ like the face. You wont have a shorten lifespan much missing either. Beacause both a external and functionally useful organs, missing either has serious psychological consequences. The medical and psychological lessons from hand transplants are probably useful for face transplants. Some recipients have mentioned identity issues of having someone else's parts on the outside of their body. I dont know how many regained reasonable nerve control or just feels like a prothestic.
Check that one out, it's pretty scary. And the extras are great too (of course, coming from Criterion, no less...). http://criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=260
is the phrase: "tissues, muscles, arteries and veins."
This sounds like they went to the bone as far as where they stopped removing tissues to put on the inured woman. The muscle structure would give the shape of the face, but I cannot imagine that she'd look much like the donor, unless they had identical bone strucure underneath it all.
I'm pretty sure if I was brain dead [really braindead, and not just my normal state of dumb], and my long and skinny face was donated to my short and stocky friend; he wouldn't look that much like me. He WOULD look really frikkin different when you consider the fact that things like the nose and lips are all soft tissue, and were "items" that were transplanted, but not look like me. Similar to me, maybe.
Its a little creepy, but good for the woman that got her face back, even if it's a new one. I just hope it doesnt get to the point where people are saying "man, I wish I could have gotten my face from a better looking person..."
s'wut i sed.
Actually, I heard it on the radio, but it's also present in page 5 of the financial section of Merck's Annual Report. My bad though, it was 50%, not 60%. Clearly, that means that I have a bias. Sorry to waste your time.
--- What
Whoever moderated the parent comment "flamebait" and "troll" obviously didn't bother to read its parent.
The article says people won't look like the donor nor themselves, but a hybrid. Which only makes sense, the bone underlying the fascia, muscles, skin etc will make a big difference. Their ethical concern comes in when the donor can't be dead. They (for reasons unspecified in the article) have to take the face donation from a "beating heart" donor, who may continue to live once their own respirator is turned off.
Besides, the world isn't television. Criminals don't use plastic surgery to escape detection/conviction etc; they wouldn't need someone else's face to do that either.
This is all so horror-show!
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
The way I understand it, they transplanted the skin of the face. Thats not a face transplant. Thats a face skin transplant. The patient will probably look like her original self more than the donor. Thats because the face structure is created more by the skull shape than the skin. Now the patient will have a different face skin color, and hair features (shes not getting it from Mullah Omar is she?). But will be recognized as herself in the end. This should really be called face skin transplant.
A real face transplant would be incredibly difficult, and might as well be a head transplant minus the brain and eyes.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Quick, sell your stocks in companies that make brown paper bags!
http://health.discovery.com/tvlistings/series.jsp? series=109445&gid=0&channel=DHC
Description:
Witness groundbreaking surgery to remove the largest facial tumors ever recorded, giving a five-year-old boy a chance for a normal life. The tumors, caused by a rare congenital disorder called fibrous dysplasia, stem from abnormal bone growth.
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It looks like you had a face transplant, but there were only chins and jowls and some pork available.
M-M-M-M-MONSTER-KILL!!! OMFG!!!L0Lorz!!1! If you are going to stick your fat ugly face up on the intarweb like that for all to see, it would probably be a good idea to not go around messing with trolls.
Hey, wait a minute... where's my...AAAAAARGHHH!
People with ethical issues when it comes to biology are _assholes_.
Does your face hurt?
No, why?
It's killin' me.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
They on the other hand, remember themselves as something different than what they look like after the operation, thereby the change of face would make them feel that they have lost some of their identity.
Your argument doesn't make any sense to me. They don't have the option of a complete restoration of the original face, and that's the only option that would be free of psychological complications. Remember that they are choosing between:
1) a vastly different "face", covered in scar tissue and missing large pieces, or
2) a somewhat different face, with some scar tissue and different freckles, etc., but likely much more recognizable as the original person due to the constant underlying bone structure. And certainly much more recognizable as a normal human face.
Are you seriously saying (1) is a better option? That you'd be more horrified when you woke up every morning with slightly differently-shaped lips, as opposed to waking up with no lips at all?
I would imagine that for now, especially, candidates will be only people who have already tried other reconstructive options, and found them totally unacceptable, and who have had time to think about the decision.
But even 10 years down the line, I don't think this kind of surgery is an option right after a serious face injury.
With transplants of donated skin, it's particularly difficult to stop rejection, and so recipients are going to have to deal with hardcore immunosuppression drugs. But if you have a large external wound, shutting down your immune system isn't the greatest idea.
So if you're a serious burn victim, you would probably have to wait for quite a while -- i.e., it wouldn't actually help to replace destroyed skin with foreign tissue immediately, because that means you'd have to shut down the body's immune system right when it's at its most vulnerable to infection because of those wounds.
Seems like common sense to me... any doctors in the house want to clarify?
> had to go to emergency and was charged $300 for 1 day's stay in emergency.
And my bill for two days stay in hospital in the US was $23,000.
You see where the difference is?
> This was all worked out eventually between the provinces, but
> I was originally billed for it, and it was a hassle.
You had to pay $300, but then got it back, and your complaint was that it was "a hassle".
Even with health insurance, I still have to pay about $2000 of the bill. A bill, mind you, that comes in so many confusing bits and pieces filtered through so much bureaocracy that even the hospital often doesn't know what's going on, and a friend of mine actually had to ask the collections agency the hospital sent after her to find out how much she owed before she could pay it.
And, for those saying "healthcare bills won't bankrupt you in the US", yes, the hospital sent a collections agency after this girl. That's why about half of bankruptcies in the US are due in large part to medical bills (Google it if you don't believe me).
Compared to that, "a hassle" is very little to complain about.
Perhaps true. However, every comparative study done on healthcare puts Canada's healthcare as equal to or better than that found in the US, despite the US spending a much larger fraction of its total GDP (13.6% vs. 9.5%).
(Before you complain about the link sites, the first study was done by the World Health Organization, the second by Johns Hopkins, the third by an author formerly from the conservative Fraser Institute. And before anyone complains that this is a Canada-vs-US thing, read especially the first study - most countries in Western Europe get better healthcare results for less money than the US, and many are better that way than Canada.)
The reason for this is, according to studies, wasteful bureaucracy in the US system. According to those who have analyzed the systems, this may be one place where a government program is actually more efficient than a collection of private programs. (The mind boggles, I know...)
In other words - ignore most of the data, and you can get any answer you're looking for. Study all of the data, and you'll find you're demonstrably wrong.
I am not Canadian, and this is not to defend their healthcare system, but come on.
MRI machines are not "THAT" plentyful, it takes over an hour to do a scan, and generaly they are well booked for this expensive scan.
In a critical or life threatening situation, sure an ER or physician may find a way to get you scanned more quickly. My girlfreind freaked out and moved (ashthma cough) during the last few minutes of the hour long scan.. This equals worthles scan.. next opening for rescan was 2 weeks.
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When I read the story to my co-worker he replied: "So she got the dog's face?" We both agreed that'd be a bitch.
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What the hell kind of dog attacks someone so badly that they lose their lips and nose? I had a friend in high school who was attacked by one of the family Dobermans because she came over the fence late at night. It tore up her nose a good deal and she needed some plastic surgery to correct the damage. But in the end she wound up looking totally normal without needing a face transplant. This must have been some monstrous dog to actually beat out a Doberman. I'm just asking because I find this really strange.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Why is this a troll? Have the moderators lost their minds?
And they punish the dog that bit her by putting her mawled face on the dog.
Table-ized A.I.
You have a little dick on your head there; need a handsaw?
"Brown-nosing" is being overly-complimentary to someone in authority because you hope to get something out of it.
Somehow I don't see it as the same thing when someone tries to make a kind comment to a guy who just mentioned that most of his face is missing. Sure, that comment doesn't really serve a purpose, but the sentiment is pretty understandable.
Then why is it usually better for less money than the US version?
(Links to multiple comprehensive studies demonstrating this in a previous post.)