Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

http://212.58.226.30/1/hi/health/3259773.stm

Surgeons say that they are now ready to start trials of facial transplants...

They infer that that would only be available for facial disfigurment and not cosmesis but as the past has shown, once you start going down a shaky moral road then it's hard to stop. As you are going so slowly that you don't always realise just how far you have travelled. By the time you have....things will never be the same again.

Think of a world where you can buy a new facial identity on the black market from unscrupulous plastic surgeons....Osama Bin Laden now looks like Duncan from blue....scary

I am however behind medical advancement for facial disfigurement. It's a tough one folks....

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

For medical purposes, I would cautiously welcome this.

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

I don't think this presents moral issues any more than a heart or a liver transplant because skin is an organ just like any other. It may have tricky social and psychological issues however, as in our society appearance is extremely important to the way we relate to each other and to ourselves. People considering this ought to get extensive counselling, I think.

I think the legal issues could be overstated. This won't change your DNA or your fingerprints, and scarring from an operation like this is bound to be visible.

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

adds new meaning to the words "you've got a face like death this morning"

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

Just realised the implication of your post !! The only possible donors for face transplants would be dead bodies !!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

*re-thinks moral issue

Hmmm ... not sure I'd like to meet the face of a dead relative down the high street, even if they had consented to it on their donor card. :disturbd:

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

But I don't think the face (once transplanted) would totally resemble the original - the underlying bone and muscle structure would surely make it look different?

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

It would certainly be different, but would it be different enough?

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

I don't think the recipient of the new face would care. If you are in deep enough doo-doos that you need a new face then you need a new face.

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

For sure, but I'm still thinking about relatives of the face donor. Will they recognise the face once it's on a new person, and how would they handle it?

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

Incredably unlikely to meet the person I would have thought

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

True, but that's side-stepping the issue. How would you react? Personally, in the unlikely event of meeting my dead brother down town, I might need to be taken away by the men in white coats. *gibber*

(My brother's alive and kicking BTW, just an example)

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

As someone said earlier, I think that due to different bone structure and facial expressions, the 'new' face would look very different

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

OK, given that:
1. You're not likely to meet the recipient of your loved one's donated face, and
2. You're unlikely to recognise the face anyway;

If you did meet them, and you did recognise the face, how might you react? Sorry to be so persistent, the more I think about this the more it gives me the wobblies.

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

i think i agree with russ..i dont think it should be used for anything more than serious facial disigurement....but havent thought about the issue much, might change my mind and totally disagree later lol

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

Ah! Pinned me down then:D .
It would freak me out!

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

Well like it or not you would know that they donated so the shock must be mitigated to a large extent.

I think the face would look much like the pre disfigurment face of the recipient, not the donor. Its basically an overcomplicated skin graft. If you take the skin off your bum and put it on your arm, it does not look like your bum. By the time its in place it will look so much like the recipient you would not know who the donor was.

From a movie fiction Point of View. In Face off when they did this, they used implants etc to ensure he looked alike. This all got most confusing when they started beating the pulp out of each other, surely you would damage the structure holding your face together (thats your face as its on the other guy).

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

I agree with it for medical reasons but some people would try to talk doctors (& probably offer a lot of money) for doing the facial transplants for cosmetic purposes which would be wrong

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

One can have the currently available plastic surgery to radically alter their appearance to the extent that you could very well claim that they had a "new" face. I fail to see any difference between this and a whole face transplant. The former can be done for cosmetic reasons, so logically so can the latter.

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I never thought of it like that ... now that would be a sight. See him over there? He can't tell his @rse from his elbow, he can't...

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

incog feeling queasy at the thought.stupid i know but there it is.

however i think this is an issue best left to those who would be offered such an operation.

i personally wouldn't want to wish my phizzog to anyone.;)

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

We've debated the issues surrounding recognition but what about the blackmarket issues surrounding this? If the technology is there what is to stop criminals changing their identity for example?

The problem of going down this road is the criminal fraternity perverting a potential medical breakthrough again.

SHould you stop the scientists from developing this in a censoring sort of a way for fear of the criminal or allow them for the medical benefit and then try and outlaw them.

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

But its not going to change their fingerprints, dna or other identifying biometrics.

Cosmetic surgery should be able to provide a better transformation for a criminal than a face transplant.

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

Maybe not now.....but hand transplants are possible right now. Eye transplants......who knows?

OK. DNA is fairly robust.......at present...

Forensics aside. If you are Britains most wanted Criminal a face transplant would buy a lot of grace....

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

Maybe, but if technology and science advances to that point, maybe we'll just do brain and major organ transplants from a living person to a dead person.

Of if you are a sufficiently heavy hitter in the criminal fraternity you will be able to find a suitable living donor, the streets will no longer be littered with homeless, the will rehouse the criminal mind.

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

I heard the professor on Radio 4 this morning ... he says that experiments on dead people showed the face, once transplanted, looks neither like the donor nor the recipient. So I'm slightly less freaked out!

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

Slightly more comforting, yes.
However that was only on cadavers. Cadavers faces look remarkably different to how they did when they were alive.

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

OK, so we're talking about dead bodies. Now I'm freaked again.

A sudden thought (courtesy of Mrs towny sitting next to me) - isn't there some kind of social taboo about picking someone else's nose or squeezing their zits?

:sick:

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

Possibly, but it would still be your bogey and your pus:D

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

As with all transpants patients suffer from cellular rejection where their immune system sees the new part as foreign and starts destroying it.
To combat this, patients have to take strong immune supressants, so they are more prone to illnesses, and they are not 100% effective so the new part is eventually killed off. Ever seen someone with a hand transplant? It's not a pretty sight!
So to think that someone with a healthy face would choose to undergo this operation when forms of plastic surgeory are available isn't likely.

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

Science fiction predicts reality again ... you're reminding me of the disgusting Videans from Star Trek Voyager :disturbd:

http://www.delta-quad.fsnet.co.uk/twigs/lifesigns.jpg

Re: Facial Transplants - Should we?
 

I'm getting more and more uncomfortable with this thread so i think i'll bow out ,sorry.

not usually squeamish. :sick: