blog.bioethics.net

The Face Trust Coming to the UK

In an article published in the Times Online from London, Peter Butler, MD argues that a better quality life made possible through face transplantation outweighs the risks of failure and rejection and possible life shortening that may occur from taking anti-rejection drugs.

The NHS is considering that it will begin funding these procedures sometime in 2009, but in the meantime they will be funded by donations to the Face Trust , (not the best name we know, but leave it to the Brits) for the more than 250,000 Britons who have severe facial deformities today. These operations are slated to start sometime in the next 12 months with Butler's surgical team at the helm.

A must-read for any patient thinking of undergoing the procedure or any surgeon thinking of participating in it is AJOB's precient article on "The Ethics of Facial Transplant Research" published in 2004, a full year before the first face transplant was done.

Now, less than 4 years after this article was published, Butler, a member of the soon-to-be face transplant team in London and CEO of the Face Trust, says that "already the debate has moved on. No longer are we discussing the ethics of whether to perform a face transplant but merely the ethics of how."

I'm not quite so sure that is true, but it would seem that if the money is made available face transplants will be made available for those who want them in the UK very soon. Yet, I wonder--among these 250,000 with severe deformities--who will have the first chance to have the procedure? What will be the criteria by which these individuals are selected? What about those who are able to pay and not use the Face Trust's scarce resources--will they be first in the queue?

Only time will tell what other ethical issues will come up under this scheme. If they can be adequately answered, more widespread face transplantation may improve the quality of life for a significant number of Britons very soon.

Summer Johnson, PhD