Editorial
Ethical issues in limb transplants
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The first successful human hand allograft, performed in Lyon in
September 1998 by an international surgical team including one of the
authors (NH), was greeted with general admiration in the British press,
some scepticism in the French media, and surprising disinterest by
medical ethicists. It might be thought, at least by English-speaking
readers, that the case is therefore closed. On this basis, hand
transplants cross technological frontiers but not ethical ones. They
raise no ethical questions that have not been answered long since, in
favour of transplantation. There can be no objections except from
die-hard opponents of progress in science, according to one of the very
few articles in medical ethics to have appeared on the issue of limb
transplants, which concludes in favour of cadaveric hand
transplantation provided professional, procedural standards of
competence have been met (including field strength of the clinical
team, scientific background of the innovation, and open
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
