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Friday, Dec 09, 2005

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A threat that face transplants pose

K.T. Sangameswaran

CHENNAI: Face transplants can be a potential threat to identifying an individual, whether alive or dead, P. Chandra Sekharan, an eminent forensic scientist, has said. He says that for the facial identification of a person, the nose and mouth serve as important features.

Though face transplant was one of the medical marvels of recent times, it was bound to create forensic problems, Prof. Chandra Sekharan, president of Forensics International and a former Director of the Tamil Nadu Forensic Sciences Department, said in a press release.

His comments came in the wake of partial face transplant on a woman in France a few days ago.

Explaining the importance of personal identification, he said that for a variety of reasons, it was often necessary to establish the personal identity of a dead body or a living person. "Identification of the dead is not only a basic necessity but also the most vital exercise in criminal investigation." There was also primarily an ethical and humanitarian need to know which individual had died.

He cited the practice of camouflaging the identities of people who were engaged in espionage through cosmetic surgery and finger ridge transplant during the World War II. Face transplant should not be a boon for such criminal activities.

He suggested that the identity cards of those individuals, who undergo face transplant should mandatorily contain the face photographs of the donor and the recipient before the operation as well as the photograph of the recipient after the transplant. Medical ethics groups who were authorised to approve face-transplants and governments which had to formulate rules and regulations for the purpose, should include such a rule and enforce it. They should also keep such photographs for their record.

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