Posted on 12/05/2005 12:02:59 PM PST by COUNTrecount
MARLY, France - The French doctor behind the world's first partial face transplant insisted Monday that his patient had not tried to commit suicide before she was maimed by her dog _ although a British newspaper said she had acknowledged it in an interview. The contradiction is one of the mysteries surrounding last week's groundbreaking operation that grafted a nose, chin and lips from a brain-dead donor onto the severely disfigured 38-year-old mother of two teenagers.
The headline-grabbing case raised questions about the ethics of performing such a dramatic operation on someone who may have suffered psychological troubles.
London's Sunday Times reported that it had spoken to the woman by mobile phone from her hospital bed and that she acknowledged taking an overdose of sleeping pills during a fit of depression this spring. That night, she was mauled by her own Labrador, in circumstances still unclear.
The woman said the reason for her suicide attempt was "secret," according to the newspaper, whose account was sharply contested by the surgeon.
"She did not try to commit suicide, I have had to say this 10 times," leading transplant surgeon Jean-Michel Dubernard, one of two heads of the teams that carried out the procedure, told The Associated Press by telephone. He would not permit the AP to speak with the woman.
"She is fine _ perfect," he said. "Good general condition, graft looking perfect, psychology _ OK."
At a news conference last Friday, Dubernard said the woman had taken a pill to try to sleep after an argument with one of her daughters. But he denied she had tried to kill herself.
Doctors, citing French laws protecting the anonymity of patients, have refused to identify her. The donor is anonymous. But the Sunday Times, citing unnamed doctors, said the donor was a 38-year-old woman who had hanged herself. Dubernard and other French officials refused to discuss specifics.
"I don't see what the problem is, whether she was hit by a car or committed suicide," said Carine Camby, who heads an agency under the Health Ministry that coordinates organ procurement. She refused to say how the donor died.
The woman's severe facial injuries made it difficult for her to speak and eat, her doctors have said.
Before the surgery, she largely kept to herself and wore a surgical mask to hide her face while walking her new pet, they said.
Many in her modest housing estate of small red-and-white apartment buildings in Marly, 190 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of Paris, did not realize the woman's face had been mutilated. They did not want to pry _ and only learned of her story from news reports about the transplant.
"Every evening, I saw her out walking, wearing a mask," said Belgassem Kahouri, a 57-year-old worker whose apartment overlooks the woman's top-floor windows. "I assumed she had an allergy or some problem breathing, maybe trouble with pollution."
The envy of those doctors who could criticise this operation just make me sick.
Didn't John Travolta and Nicholas Cage have a successful double face transplant that was then also successfully reversed?
That's one big dog bite.
ping
Good News: The operation was a success,
Bad News: You now look like Helen Thomas.
I went to a suicide and a dog maiming broke out!
Supposedly the dog that bit her was known to be aggressive.
I wonder if she tripped over it in the dark after taking the sleeping pill and it got revenge?
I wonder what breed her new pet is...something small I hope.
Just recently I was bitten by my own loving doggie.
A horse stomped him and when I ran over to see if he was alive he came up fighting and latched full force onto my arm. It's a good thing he only weighs 16 lbs.
He seemed sorry afterwards... I hope he realized I wasn't the one who stomped him!
It is scary to have him on my lap now...I'm hoping he doesn't have any flashbacks. He still has pain but getting better.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1534088/posts
Woman Who Had Face Transplant Doing Well-(Pet was Labrador)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1534241/posts
New row breaks out over face transplant (Donor and recipient had both attempted suicide)
bump
Personally,
I think any kind of advances in reconstructive surgery are wonderful.
From what I understand, face tissue needs to be alive for the transplant to work.
That is why the donor was 'brain dead'.
That is where the ethical questions come in. No one has the same definition of brain dead.
All tissue has to be viable for a transplant.
Like skin grafts etc. The way I see this, is it's like a skin graft, but with more depth.
Yet those are pikers, chump change artists compared to the subtle, smiling, well-dressed levels of both vile perversion and murder achieved in the public blood sacrifice of Terri Schinder-Schiavo.
Who's brain dead? The poor, the weak, the disposessed who have valued organs, contract or estate value in death or, now -- pretty faces.
Oh? Really?
Maybe they can give Michael Jackson a new nose now.
Well, I hope after all these ethical questions are addressed the doctor who performed the transplant is able to save face.
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