Yup, Face Transplants

BBC News announced on October 25, 2006 in the online article “UK gets face transplant go-ahead” (found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6083392.stm) that surgeons in London have been granted permission to select patients for performing the world’s first full face transplant surgery.

The ethics committee of London’s Royal Free Hospital gave Peter Butler and his team of surgeons consent to perform a full face transplant surgery. Only a partial face transplant has been successfully performed. Butler and his colleagues now start the process of finding candidates for the full face transplant operation, who must be able to handle the psychological impacts that the surgery will have on them. The transplant operation consists of two major steps. In the first step, surgeons remove from a donor the skin, muscle, and fat of the face area in addition to eight blood vessels, four arteries and four veins. Secondly, the bloods vessels, arteries, veins, and nerves are connected to the recipient over the course of several hours. Once surgery is completed, the patient must take immunosuppressant drugs so that they will not reject the foreign tissue that is now their face. Due to the recipient’s own unique bone structure, they should appear different than the donor.

The research and study done in face transplants motivates scientists for years. Butler has not only been studying the surgery itself, but has also familiarized himself with how the body can reject tissue, mental issues, and the impact of identity. Butler wants to give a sense of hope and normality to patients still unsatisfied after many, many reconstructive surgeries. Because of the controversial nature of face transplants, which touch on the loss and augmentation of one’s identity, surgeons such as Butler are extremely motivated to introduce new medicine, yet remain cautious due to the intense risks that they can havoc on an unstable patient. Scientists also play a large role in deciding if such a procedure lines up with morality. Members of the hospital’s ethics committee must seriously decide whether to progress or halt a decade of research by people such as Butler. In addition to deciding if the immunosuppressant drugs are safe, the committee bears the task of being able to see how science and philosophy intertwine. This physical surgery has great mental effects which relate to identity, how people recognized each other, and how people recognize themselves.

The issue of identity is a prevalent one. I believe full face transplants have great potential to give those suffering from disfigured or injured faces a chance to live a normal life without being shunned by society. However, I fear the line where face transplants can be used for the wrong reasons. For instance, the surgery could one day go as far as to aid a fleeing criminal, play a role in identity theft, and reshape the entire spectrum of plastic surgery, maybe even customizing a face that you wish to have. I find it comforting that groups, such as the Royal Free Hospital’s ethics committee, take the time to consider the social effects of atypical procedures. Scientists should continue to monitor their fellow researchers and doctors so that scientific progress can be used for the greatest benefit to the public, and not be wasted on those who do not truly appreciate it, which could bring harsh affects to the way we live.