Ethics questioned in face operation

Ethical debate has been stirred in France over groundbreaking facial transplant in which both the donor and the recipient had attempted suicide.

Transplant patient Isabelle Dinoire, was reported to have overdosed on pills last May following an argument with one of her two daughters. As she lay unconscious, part of her nose, her mouth and chin were bitten off by her Labrador-cross dog.

The donor, whose name has not been released, was a similar age and from the same area as Dinoire. She died by hanging herself, The Guardian reported.

Emmanuel Hirsch, a professor of medical ethics, told Le Journal du Dimanche he had concerns that psychological ethics had been sacrificed in the 15-hour operation doctors performed eight days ago. "I have the impression that everything was done in a hurry and that not all the questions involved were taken into account when there was no real urgency," UPI quoted Hirsch as saying.

V.Y.