Posted on 12/09/2005 6:51:42 PM PST by LifeSite News
AMIENS, France, December 9, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Much controversy has been made over the first-ever face transplant surgery conducted in France on a 38-year-old woman Isabelle Dinoire who was attacked by a dog. Covered by the media in recent days, the surgery was performed November 26-27 in a hospital in Amiens. The controversy has revolved around two aspects of the operation and totally ignored a third - and the most disturbing of the controversies surrounding the operation.
Ethicists and experts the world over have been discussing the need of the transplant recipient to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life and of the psychological consequences of having a different face. Ignored however has been the fact that the face, in order to be transplanted had to come from a live donor - heart beating and still breathing.
Dr. Iain Hutchison, an oral-facial surgeon at Barts and the London Hospital, told the BBC: "The transplant would have to come from a beating heart donor." Hutchison, who is chief executive of Saving Faces - the Facial Surgery Research Foundation, explained, "So, say your sister was in intensive care, you would have to agree to allow their face to be removed before the ventilator was switched off."
In 1999, when the Canadian Parliament was examining the issue of vital organ donation a Parliamentary committee heard disturbing testimony about organ harvesting and criteria for declarations of 'death'.
Ruth Oliver, a Vancouver psychiatrist who was declared clinically dead in 1977 at the Kingston General Hospital after suffering internal bleeding of the brain, was there in 1999 to tell the committee she is "living testimony that people survive" hospital declarations of death not based on solid criteria.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifesite.net ...
Considering the outer layer of skin is dead cells, the above statement is sending my BS meter into the red.
But...why????
she could have been brain dead
Who wants a dead face? Look at Pelosi. Not a pretty sight.
I am not worried. My face and I rejected each other long ago. We have agreed to never look in a mirror.
"she could have been brain dead"
exactly...and she was declared brain dead.
This story said she was "breathing" - very misleading.
A ventilator was doing the breathing.
If they hadn't done the transplant - they would have disconnected her from the ventilator - and she would have died without helping anyone.
This practice is no different than those used to perform a heart transplant.
BTW - I am a very pro-life person who also had to make the decision concerning a loved one who was declared brain dead and donated her heart so someone else could live.
This article is misleading and is based on speculation by those who were not involved. According to news reports the donor had committed suicide by hanging and was thus not "still breathing".
I know a number of "two-faced" people who caould become donors.
The donor herself? No - the donor was brain dead on a ventilator, from what I understand. Her family, yes.
Keeping her ventilated through the operation must have been a trick.
<< I am happy that this woman now has a face but I am such a ghoul that I want to see pictures. >>
There are pictures around. I imagine Google - or if you have an account, Lexis-Nexis - will find them for you.
Exactly why I'm not a donor.
susie
I'm not sure but my impression is that this transplant includes at least muscle tissue as well.
susie
If that was all there was to it, Larry Hagman could have had his choice of livers a while back.
She's so two-faced.
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