Free Republic

Pvt. Shamika Burrage lost her entire left ear during a car accident on her way to visit family in Texas, says a report from the U.S. Army. The soldier needed counseling to deal with her emotions after the accident, including dealing with discontentment about the way she looked. At the urging of her counselor, Burrage looked into plastic surgery for the missing ear. That’s when she found surgeons at William Beaumont Army Medical Center (WBAMC) who had a radical idea. The medical team wanted to use cartilage from Burrage’s ribs to form a new, non-artificial ear. The ear would then...

EL PASO, Texas — Sixteen patients exposed to a mismanaged insulin needle program have tested positive for hepatitis C, Army officials said Tuesday. The William Beaumont Army Medical Center patients were among more than 2,000 diabetics who may have been exposed to blood-borne illnesses between August 2007 and January 2009 because of the program that systematically gave multiple patients injections from the same insulin pen. Lt. Col. Sandy LaFon, the hospital's chief of preventive medicine, said it's unclear if the infections came from the improper insulin injections or were previously undiagnosed infections. Either way, the 16 patients are being treated...