The World's First Full Face Transplant

Dave Knott writes "A thirty-member Spanish medical team has achieved the world's first full face transplant. There have been ten previous similar operations, but this is claimed to be the first total transplant, replacing all of the face including some bones. The unnamed recipient originally injured himself in a shooting accident, and received the entire facial skin and muscles — including cheekbones, nose, lips and teeth — of a donor. The complex operation involved extraction of the donor's face, followed by removal of the jaw, nose, cheeks and parts of the eye cavities. Then the medical team took all of the donor face's soft tissue, including musculature, veins and nerves. In order to transplant the face, the medical team has to connect four jugular veins, extract bones and join all the musculature and blood vessels. The recipient has had a chance to see himself in the mirror, and is reportedly satisfied with the results. It is unknown whether he now looks more like John Travolta or Nicolas Cage." The pictures and videos in the linked articles are all computer-generated at this point, so the squeamish need not worry.

Simply astounding!

[JDSalinger]

Despite it being 2010, it remains popular to attack science and medicine as though they do not have a significant mastery of reality or how the body works. Achievements like this demonstrate that the human body is not only understandable, but that it can be highly manipulated and changed with life-changing degrees of success.

For all the people who claim that our medical knowledge is seriously lacking or fraught with error, this fly's in your face. Prepare for an onslaught of biomedical advances that will change everything we know about health and longevity. While the human body may seem to work like black magic, perhaps like an infinitely complex analog circuit, advances in understanding are steadily being made. There are real achievers in these domains and they are standing on the shoulders of giants, accruing the tools to solve any physiological problem.

Re:Let me get this straight

[east coast]

While I get your point in all of this there is also the fact that the research value of this is well worth their time too.

Re:Let me get this straight

[MrMista_B]

Hey, you know this computer you're using to post to Slashdot?

Yeah, I wonder how much it costs to vaccinate a single child, indeed, hypocrite.

Re:Let me get this straight

[roman_mir]

Hold on, you have just spent time reading about this on /. and commenting, but you could have been outside, helping the needy!

Re:Let me get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey you hypocritical shit. There's work to be done down at the soup kitchen. Get your lazy ass off slashdot and help out! Sell your computer and get those kids vaccinated!