Face transplants promised hope. Patients were put through the unthinkable(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Face transplants promised hope. Patients were put through the unthinkable
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/nov/27/face-transplant-patients-results-outcomes
14 comments
The article seems heavy on blame but it seems the people involved are just trying to do the best they can for patients who are in an extremely grave situation where good outcomes are unlikely.
I think this is an "everything sucks here" kind of story.
We don't understand the immune system enough to make transplants less risky.
We don't seem to know if QoL is better between those who take the procedure vs those who don't.
The ongoing costs to supporting these operations are crazy and the dysfunctional US system doesn't help.
We don't understand the immune system enough to make transplants less risky.
We don't seem to know if QoL is better between those who take the procedure vs those who don't.
The ongoing costs to supporting these operations are crazy and the dysfunctional US system doesn't help.
Recently I've seen some articles that they've figured out at least partly how the immune system learns to ignore antigens. And have made progress with inverse vaccines.
Cross fingers perhaps that'll make transplants work without having to bludgeon peoples immune system to keep them from rejecting.
Cross fingers perhaps that'll make transplants work without having to bludgeon peoples immune system to keep them from rejecting.
I SO hate this style of reporting. They make me read through 10 paragraphs of human interest pap, when what I really want is to learn something about the medicine that the headline promises. Then a couple of paragraphs of concrete info, then dive back into another vignette. I didn't click into the article to read shocking sad stories, I came to learn something, and the writer is making it unnecessarily difficult to do so.
But....the human stories are the whole point of this, no? I just finished the article and it shows clearly(to me) that there are patients who suffer horrible consequences of having those transplants and the system just mostly.....doesn't care? Like one of them says - he can't afford a $100 uber to the hospital, so the hospital just writes him down as non-compliant. So in the medical stats behind this he's probably recorded as healthy and happy, since he doesn't even turn up to his appointments anymore! As one of the surgeons is quoted later "most patients are happy and don't complain" - that's the entire point of this article, maybe they don't complain because they can't or they feel like they can't. If they are being wheeled around to be shown publicly as the pinacle of human surgery they feel like they can't go and say "actually this isn't working for me".
Again, it just sounds like the fault of the system, mostly the American non existent healtcare system. When my dad was treated for cancer using an experimental treatment at a leading oncological hospital in warsaw, he had all his travel costs covered by the hospital. But it sounds like in US insurance companies are just not interested in actually helping these people, I guess it's cheaper to let them die from complications?
>>when what I really want is to learn something about the medicine
I think you can learn - the fact that for some procedures the interest in outcomes ends with patient survival and not with long term prognosis. I imagine it's not universal, but the article describes specific cases of specific people. They are essential to the story.
Again, it just sounds like the fault of the system, mostly the American non existent healtcare system. When my dad was treated for cancer using an experimental treatment at a leading oncological hospital in warsaw, he had all his travel costs covered by the hospital. But it sounds like in US insurance companies are just not interested in actually helping these people, I guess it's cheaper to let them die from complications?
>>when what I really want is to learn something about the medicine
I think you can learn - the fact that for some procedures the interest in outcomes ends with patient survival and not with long term prognosis. I imagine it's not universal, but the article describes specific cases of specific people. They are essential to the story.
The vignette the piece opens with is horrifying, but it's not even relevant to the topic of the piece! It's about a bad dog, not about a botched surgery.
This piece is engineered to evoke an emotion, not to inform. The author has a clear agenda (see also the top comment in this thread!), and is setting up the article to make readers agree with that - not to give us the information we need to better understand why it's unfolded this way. We have a more precise word for that: propaganda.
There's been enough ink spilled about media bias and "fake news" that I'd like to believe that writers would be at least a little bit sensitive to it. But not here, the author is jumping into the bias with both feet.
This piece is engineered to evoke an emotion, not to inform. The author has a clear agenda (see also the top comment in this thread!), and is setting up the article to make readers agree with that - not to give us the information we need to better understand why it's unfolded this way. We have a more precise word for that: propaganda.
There's been enough ink spilled about media bias and "fake news" that I'd like to believe that writers would be at least a little bit sensitive to it. But not here, the author is jumping into the bias with both feet.
>>This piece is engineered to evoke an emotion, not to inform
I am now very informed that at least some of the recepients of full face transplants regret the decision to have them because of the effects it had on their lives. Or is that not informing for you?
>>not to give us the information we need to better understand why it's unfolded this way.
One of the patients is poor and cannot afford the taxi to the hospital, therefore the hospital marks him down as non compliant. It is because there is no funding to give him and American healthcare companies don't care to provide it, and he is poor at least partially as a result of his injuries.
That's what I got from the article - what else do you need to know to figure out "why it's unfolded this way"? What is there to unfold? Why the American healthcare system is shaped this way? Do you not think that would be a tiny bit out of scope?
>>We have a more precise word for that: propaganda.
I guess pictures showing starving sudanese children are propaganda too, because they evoke an emotion in you - you'd rather read cold hard facts without any emotion? Number of people shot, starved, how many of them are younger than 3....that sort of thing?
I'm sorry but the idea that evocative reporting, one that is meant to make you relate to the subject, is....propaganda? Is just surreal, it's like something from a Sci-Fi book where people have been surgically modified to not have any emotion.
That doesn't mean you have to like, enjoy or even agree with this article. But calling it propaganda?
I am now very informed that at least some of the recepients of full face transplants regret the decision to have them because of the effects it had on their lives. Or is that not informing for you?
>>not to give us the information we need to better understand why it's unfolded this way.
One of the patients is poor and cannot afford the taxi to the hospital, therefore the hospital marks him down as non compliant. It is because there is no funding to give him and American healthcare companies don't care to provide it, and he is poor at least partially as a result of his injuries.
That's what I got from the article - what else do you need to know to figure out "why it's unfolded this way"? What is there to unfold? Why the American healthcare system is shaped this way? Do you not think that would be a tiny bit out of scope?
>>We have a more precise word for that: propaganda.
I guess pictures showing starving sudanese children are propaganda too, because they evoke an emotion in you - you'd rather read cold hard facts without any emotion? Number of people shot, starved, how many of them are younger than 3....that sort of thing?
I'm sorry but the idea that evocative reporting, one that is meant to make you relate to the subject, is....propaganda? Is just surreal, it's like something from a Sci-Fi book where people have been surgically modified to not have any emotion.
That doesn't mean you have to like, enjoy or even agree with this article. But calling it propaganda?
You ignored the first paragraph in my reply, where I pointed out that the first, and most horrifying, vignette in the article wasn't even related to the actual topic. Leading with that little story is artificially creating a degree of concern that's undeserved: it's dishonest. I don't understand why you think this is OK.
Seeing a laundry list of heartbreaking problems as I page through the news isn't even slightly helpful in helping me form a bigger picture of what's good or bad in the world. And when our concern and attention is meted out according not to importance or severity, but by which writers can evoke the greatest pathos, we're being overall less effective in helping others than we might otherwise be.
Seeing a laundry list of heartbreaking problems as I page through the news isn't even slightly helpful in helping me form a bigger picture of what's good or bad in the world. And when our concern and attention is meted out according not to importance or severity, but by which writers can evoke the greatest pathos, we're being overall less effective in helping others than we might otherwise be.
>>You ignored the first paragraph in my reply, where I pointed out that the first, and most horrifying, vignette in the article wasn't even related to the actual topic.
I apologize - you are correct. I re-read that paragraph again and indeed, it's not clear if there is anything there other than the dog literally eating her face, and it's unclear to my why that's included other than the emotional element.
>>Seeing a laundry list of heartbreaking problems as I page through the news isn't even slightly helpful in helping me form a bigger picture of what's good or bad in the world.
And obviously you are free to have such an approach. For me personally seeing starving children in Sudan or children getting blown up Ukraine or Gaza is far more evocative and effective at making me care about those issues than any "dry" stats would ever be.
>>we're being overall less effective in helping others than we might otherwise be.
Alright, can you share how exactly are you helping others due to non-emotional news pieces that you encounter? I'm genuienly curious.
I apologize - you are correct. I re-read that paragraph again and indeed, it's not clear if there is anything there other than the dog literally eating her face, and it's unclear to my why that's included other than the emotional element.
>>Seeing a laundry list of heartbreaking problems as I page through the news isn't even slightly helpful in helping me form a bigger picture of what's good or bad in the world.
And obviously you are free to have such an approach. For me personally seeing starving children in Sudan or children getting blown up Ukraine or Gaza is far more evocative and effective at making me care about those issues than any "dry" stats would ever be.
>>we're being overall less effective in helping others than we might otherwise be.
Alright, can you share how exactly are you helping others due to non-emotional news pieces that you encounter? I'm genuienly curious.
It's so jarring getting a peek into the mind of someone who sees the world this way. Take this, for example:
>Globally, there are perhaps 20 (mostly male) specialized surgeons capable of face transplants
What an extraordinarily petty way to announce your bitter, cynical world view.
Or announcing your racial allegiance with the capitalisation of "Black" vs lower case "whiteness", or indeed the assertion that made it necessary to bring race into this at all: that White people are to blame (as per usual) for low organ donorship among African Americans.
It must be exhausting.
>Globally, there are perhaps 20 (mostly male) specialized surgeons capable of face transplants
What an extraordinarily petty way to announce your bitter, cynical world view.
Or announcing your racial allegiance with the capitalisation of "Black" vs lower case "whiteness", or indeed the assertion that made it necessary to bring race into this at all: that White people are to blame (as per usual) for low organ donorship among African Americans.
It must be exhausting.
You're a) projecting, b) astroturfing, c) both, d) both (unconsciously)
This capitalization been AP style for years now.
https://apnews.com/article/archive-race-and-ethnicity-910566...
This capitalization been AP style for years now.
https://apnews.com/article/archive-race-and-ethnicity-910566...
I know. It's outrageous that they are so emboldened to publicly declare this to be their policy and that the practice has survived without condemnation for this long. As a White man, their reasoning in that link is insulting - and very clearly intended to be so.
Just because they are brazen, shameless, and (so far) unchallenged in their racism doesn't make it ok.
Just because they are brazen, shameless, and (so far) unchallenged in their racism doesn't make it ok.
Progress is hard won, and the first people to undergo new procedures are the ones who have it hardest.