March 2, 2006
December 1, 2005
World AIDS Day
Originally uploaded by Enmicropedias.
AIDS is no longer the killer it was in the Western world. Having said that I have seen more patient with HIV in the past 2 years than I have seen in the decade before that. But the terrible nightmare continues for developing nations particularly those in Africa. The statistics there are terrifying.
The politics of HIV/AIDS is terrifying in many of those nations too. South Africa is an outstanding example of a country that is following a path that seems to make no sense and seems totally unnecessary.
But there are glimmers of hope. And there are a lot of good people chipping away at the problem. Thailand has designed some particularly innovative programmes. Lets hope those monks can keep advocating in a really constructive way and that others follow suit.
World’s First FACE Transplant
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1520379.htm
“The world’s first partial face transplant has been performed on a 38-year-old French woman, whose lips and nose were ripped off in a dog attack, the surgeon who carried out the operation told AFP. Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard, the French surgeon who performed the world’s first hand transplant in 1998, confirmed news reports that the transplant had taken place, without giving further details. French news magazine Le Point says a team of surgeons led by Professor Dubernard and Professor Bernard Devauchelle carried out the operation on Sunday and Monday in the northern French town of Amiens. In the high-risk operation, a triangle formed by the nose and mouth was grafted on to the patient, from the northern French town of Valenciennes, who was admitted to hospital in May, the weekly said. The facial tissues, muscles, arteries and veins needed for the transplant were taken on Sunday from a donor in the northern city of Lille, who was in a brain-dead condition, Le Point reports. Professor Dubernard, a surgeon at the Edouard Herriot hospital in Lyon and a French deputy, performed the world’s first hand transplant in September 1998, followed by the first double hand and forearm transplant in January 2000. Professor Devauchelle is a facial surgery specialist from the CHU university hospital in Amiens.”
