Army prepares for face transplants

The Army already has received $2 million in funding earmarked for two face transplants, such as the one shown here, which was conducted Dec. 17 at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. That was the first face transplant in the United States.


Army prepares for face transplants
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Mar 8, 2009 9:14:39 EDT

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The first face transplant performed in the United States, one of only four in the world, made headlines in December, and it won’t be long before face and hand transplants are performed in the military.

Funding for two face transplants, at $1 million each, is already earmarked, according to Army doctors, who cautioned those who might think they are candidates that the procedure is not simple.

“I think it depends on the anti-rejection therapy,” said Col. Robert Vandre, project director at the Armed Forces Institute for Regenerative Medicine. He said the immunosuppressive drug regimen that goes along with a transplant is complex. The combination of three of these drugs can have side effects that could kill a recipient.

New therapies are being used with kidney and liver transplants by first transplanting bone marrow from the donor into the recipient, where they begin to co-exist and become tolerant of one another. But face and hand transplants are much trickier than transplants of internal organs, Vandre told Army Times during the Feb. 25-27 mid-winter meeting of the Association of the United States Army.

Unlike the donation of organs such as kidneys, livers and hearts, which can be transported on ice, the transplantation of hands and faces requires a brain-dead donor being kept alive on a ventilator.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/news/2009/03/army_face_transplant_030809w/%2e

--the market for organs will take off like a shot.

People who get stoned out of their faces on indica. Perhaps that is another good reason for legalization?