![]() ![]() We will not publish comments that are profane, libelous, racist, or engage in personal attacks.Preference is given to commenters who use real names. ![]() Please be advised:Ĭomments are moderated and will not appear on site until they have been reviewed.Ĭomments are not open on some news articles Bell Media reserves the right to choose commenting availability. Bell Media reviews every comment submitted, and reserves the right to approve comments and edit for brevity and clarity. Because of those dangers, many transplants of non-vital body parts, such as thumbs, are not considered worth doing.īut that could change if the drugs don't have to be a lifelong commitment. The immunosuppression drugs that transplant patients are typically given for the rest of their lives carry such risks as cancer, viral infections and kidney damage. The new experiment, involving the suspension of anti-rejection drugs, will eventually include other patients, and its findings could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of people, military and civilian alike, doctors said. The face and the extremities are the two most frequently injured parts of the body in war. through its hand and face transplantation program. The Pentagon is providing grants to 14 medical facilities across the U.S. Of those, about 50 or 60 might be candidates for a face transplant, Pfister said. The Defence Department estimates 560 soldiers have suffered severe facial wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command's Clinical and Rehabilitative Medicine research program.Ībout 35 full or partial face transplants have been performed worldwide since the first one was done in France in 2005. Brian Pfister, a portfolio manager for the U.S. "It makes sense for us to look at the civilian community and the experiences that are gained through the involvement of non-uniformed people to assess if this is a good solution for the military," said Dr. The military is also interested in such things as any scarring around the mouth and how well her eyelids work. In addition, doctors examine how well the arteries are delivering blood to the transplant. She is also subjected to MRIs and CT scans to determine how well her brain is sending signals to her new face. She was working as a dispatcher for a towing company at the time of the attack.Ībout every six weeks, Nash undergoes lab tests for the military at Brigham and Women's. Over the years, she also did some horse-jumping, worked on a farm and manned a computer help desk. Her life today is a stark contrast to her younger years, when she was a barrel racer on the rodeo circuit from the 1970s through the mid-1990s. A GoFundMe account is being set up to help raise money for prosthetic hands. She also exercises a couple of days a week with a trainer at a gym to build her strength and stay healthy. Now blind, Nash spends most of her days listening to radio and books on tape - lately, "War and Peace" - in her modest, second-story apartment in Boston. She also underwent a double hand transplant, but it failed when her body rejected the tissue. ![]() She later received new facial features taken from a dead woman. Doctors also had to remove her eyes because of a disease transmitted by the chimp. Nash lost her nose, lips, eyelids and hands when she was mauled by her employer's 200-pound (90-kilogram) pet chimpanzee in Connecticut. "They asked me, could they? I said, 'Yeah, I'd be thrilled to help out in any way I could,"' said Nash But the 61-year-old daughter of an Air Force veteran said she gets real satisfaction out of letting the doctors use her for research, and sees it as an opportunity to help wounded soldiers and "do something good out of all of this bad." Nash jokes about sometimes feeling like a science project. In the coming weeks, for example, Nash will take part in a military-funded experiment in which doctors at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital will try to wean her off the anti-rejection drugs she has been taking since the transplant. military paid for Nash's full face transplant in 2011 and is underwriting her follow-up treatment at a combined cost estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, in the hope that some of the things it learns can help young, seriously disfigured soldiers returning from war. Defence Department, though, is watching her recovery closely. She was horribly disfigured, not in combat, but in a 2009 attack by a rampaging chimpanzee. BOSTON - Charla Nash never served in the military.
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