WEBVTT - How Face Transplants Work 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.600 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:11.520 from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:15.720 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. I gotta 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.000 come up with something new, Chuck. Now you say there's 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:22.959 like there, it goes like I run by the Ah, yeah, 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.880 we'll figure this out. Maybe when we're not recording, we'll 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:28.880 just take the extra effort. That means we'll have to 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.960 speak outside of this room. Now, Yeah, we don't do that. 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.000 We're like Pete Townsend and Roger Daltery they do that, 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.360 or like the Gallagher brothers from Oasis. Yeah, they hate 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.240 each other, but when they get together it's like your gold. 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.080 You know, it's magic man. So, Chuck, have you ever 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.760 seen then John wou movie Face Off? I have not 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.360 good Chuck. You want to talk about face transplants? Yes, 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:54.760 you remember Travis the Chimp. It was like my first 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.240 blog post ever. Ah yeah, yeah, that chimp that went 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.800 crazy and Hampshire. Yeah, well apparently he tore that woman's 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.520 face off. Yeah. There There was a transcript of the 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.279 of the nine eleven call and one of the cops 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.240 is like, you need to send an ambulance out here. 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:12.880 There's a man down. He is in trouble. The guy 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.040 couldn't even tell it was a woman, like her face 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:19.479 was pulled off. Um and uh. One of the things, 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:21.600 one of the first things I heard after the detail 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.280 at Grizzly Detail emerged was that this woman would likely 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.120 get a face transplant. Right. And I'd heard of him, 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:32.280 but vaguely, and hadn't really put much thought into a 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.600 face transplant, you know, I remember just from and we'll 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:37.320 talk about her later. But the French woman was the 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:39.880 one that came to mind. I hadn't heard about her. 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.160 I wasn't paying attention, I guess. And what two thousand five, 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.280 That was a rough year for you, it was, let 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:49.560 me think, pretty hazy. Huh, Holy cow, I lost two 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:51.800 thousand five. I'm gonna have to give some thought to 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.760 this while we're practicing new intros, right, okay, so um, 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:57.920 so yes, this this poor woman who was attacked by 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.960 this rampaging chimp, who was eventually shot to death by 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.480 the police. Um, we'll likely get a face transplant. And 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:06.320 we just so happened to have an article on the 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:10.880 site appropriately titled how face transplants work. And that's what 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:13.240 we're gonna talk about today, right. Yeah. I love this article. 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.920 By the way. It was gruesome. It was gruesome, but 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:18.240 it was really I don't know, Stephanie Watson wrote, it's 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.679 just really well written. It is well written. I agree wellheartedly. Um, 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.840 there's all sorts of pictures, um. And actually there's an 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:29.360 illustration like that I did too. Yeah. Um, the faces 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.000 kind of draped over the skull. I like the face 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.040 on ice. Yeah. Yeah, that was the best one. I think. 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.480 I wonder if Marcus did that one. We'll never know. 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.639 We'll never know, no, so chuck um there. The first 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:45.960 successful transplant of any kind was what nineteen and there 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:47.839 was a physician I think he was in Boston named 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:53.240 Joseph Murray, and he carried out the first successful kidney transplant. 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.160 And he did it using identical twins, which was the 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.320 key early on, like people had tried transplanting things before. 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.640 But you know, in the transplant went well, but ultimately 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.720 the body rejected it. You know why, Uh, I want 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:10.680 to hear your explanation, pal, Well, it's because the body 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.360 isn't very receptive to foreign tissue. So when you get 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.120 we're back in those days when you would get something transplanted. 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:19.520 Your body sees that as a foreign invader, just like 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.480 it would a disease or something, and the white blood 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.519 cells kick into gear and just go into attack mode. 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.440 The body no likely foreign invaders now, But if you're 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.840 identical twins, um, you had enough of a match to 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:32.919 where it worked out. Right. The problem is that most 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.400 people who need transplants don't have identical twins, so it's 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.800 a it's a terrible way to you know, establish medical procedure, 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:41.640 but it was a good way to starting well sure, 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.720 and it was successful. He showed that you can transplant 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.360 human tissue from one person to another and it be successful. 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:53.400 So that was like the real milestone. Uh. And then 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.080 after that, you know, people started exploring other ways to 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:59.720 do this without uh, you know, um, identical twins. You 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:03.400 know how I want to hear your explanation. Well, you're 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.720 really piping up today, aren't Uh. By the nineteen sixties, 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:09.760 what they figured out is that they could suppress your 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:14.640 immune system. Then you could using drugs like a cyclosporine, 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.279 you could you could be successful with the transplant. And 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.480 what they're trying to suppress their things called and egens, 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:25.080 which are proteins. They're found on the exterior of uh 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:29.400 tissue tissue cells, right yeah, um, and and those are 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.200 the things that create that prompt an immune response. So 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:34.600 they're the ones that sense like, well, whoa, whoa, I 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.440 don't remember this hand being here before we lost our hand. 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.640 What's going on here? Go get rid of that hand, right, 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.240 And then the white blood cells attack like the cavalry, 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:45.120 which is awesome. I mean, it's great. It's cool that 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.520 your body does this because that means you have a 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:52.120 robust and violent immune system. Of course, if you're trying 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.360 to get a transplant, it's no good. But you want 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:56.640 your body to go after things with bigger like yeah, 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.960 like mersa, you don't want that, no, no, but yeah, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.080 if you have a hand, you you you wish you 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.640 could tell your your antigens to just settle down. It's 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.279 your new hand and you're pretty fond of it to 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.040 keep it right. So, so the problem is the the 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:16.320 drugs that they came up with were immune suppressive, meaning 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.680 okay that the antigens are no longer being prompted to 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.480 attack the hand or send the white bloods also attack 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:24.640 the hand, but they're also not being prompted to go 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.120 attack the mersa bacteria that's in your body. Now, Um, 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.640 you left you susceptible to other problems that pretty much 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.280 everything else. I mean, how many uh, bacteria and viruses 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:38.720 just germs in general do we come in contact with 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.520 any every day and we don't even notice? Like we 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.640 did that one on toads causing wards and like twenty 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:50.279 million people have the human pablova virus and um, you know, 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.359 very few are actually suffering from it. We don't even 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.560 know where carriers because their bodies can ward it off, right, 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:59.360 So we had to come up with something better, and 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:03.480 they did, but it was along the lines of immunosuppressive drugs. 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.240 We just got the most slightly more refined, right Exactly. 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:09.800 Once we had that down, we started really going crazy 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:14.360 with heart transplants transplants. Eighties and nineties is when they 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.760 really kind of started mastering this whole technique, right, And 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.839 then after that, after the vital organ transplants, we started 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.719 getting into those hand transplants. I gotta tell you, I 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:26.120 find that fascinating. Very Look, Skywalker, S know you're gonna 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.120 say that, thank you. You know me so well, well, 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:29.680 the way you're doing your hand, it was like the 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.000 scene from the movie. Yeah, it looks like it. Oh yeah, 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:38.760 they can't see okay. Um. So, so inevitably we end 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:42.080 up at facial transplants and it took a little while, 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.640 but really, if you think about it, we went from 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.960 the first successful kidney transplant to the first successful face 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.799 transplant about fifty years. Not bad. That's pretty quick. Yeah. Yeah, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:53.719 So so let's talk about you want to talk about 0:06:53.720 --> 0:07:00.440 that poor girl in uh sound deep coo are or Josh. 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.520 She was nine years old in northern Indian. She was 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.920 chopping grass to feed her buffalo, her family buffalo, which 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:09.600 is a noble pursuit very much, and her hair got 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.720 caught in the threshing machine and basically pulled her entire 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.800 face and scalp and hair right off of her, clean 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.320 off of her. Yeah, and and her family reacted promptly. 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.760 They threw her face into a bag, put the girl 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.080 on the back of a moped and drove to the 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.760 closest hospital, which was three hours away. So they drove 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:34.200 their faceless, scalpless, hairless daughter to the hospital on a 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:38.240 moped for three hours, and the doctors took a look 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:40.000 at her and we're like, we can't do skin grass. 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:42.240 This girl is never going to function properly again. So 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.920 they actually put her face, scalp and hair back on 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.360 and she she's functioning. Yeah. Actually, just I saw a 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.400 picture of her at nineteen on the internet. She looks good, 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.320 you know. I mean, there's some scars, obviously, and I 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:57.560 think her right eye has a little bit of a 0:07:57.680 --> 0:07:59.360 droop to it, so, I mean you can tell, but 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:01.920 you know, if your face has been pulled clean off 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.000 by a treasure, you really can't complain about the little droopy. 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:09.960 I so that that was technically the first facial transplant, 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:15.040 but the first real transplant from a donor came in 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:17.960 two thousand five. Can I handle the grizzly details on 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.160 this one please. There's something that I noticed in researching 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.760 how face transplants work, and that is that all face 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.840 transplants begin with a horrible, gruesome event. Yeah, there's really 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.200 no way to lose your face unless there's some horrible accident. 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:34.959 And even if there's like a disease, it's a ravaging, 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.080 horrible disease to like tumors or something, or the well, 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:40.640 the elephant man disease. I think it is what they 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:44.040 call it. Yes, he was not an animal, no um. 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:49.000 So this woman was named Isabelle Dean Noir and uh, 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.240 she's a frenchwoman. And in two thousand five, she popped 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:55.960 some sleeping pills, passed out on her couch and she 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.079 woke up. I don't know if this is a normal 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.320 habit of hers or not, but she woke up, and uh, 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:03.560 I went to go light a cigarette and found that 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.880 it kept falling out of her mouth. She didn't know 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:07.800 what was going on. So she goes to the mirror 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.400 and the lower half of her face I took from 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.680 below her nose down was gone. She was nothing but 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:18.880 like tissue and teeth. And apparently, from what I understand, 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:20.679 and I know you know something different, I'd like to 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.800 hear it. From what I understand, her black lab chewed 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.040 the bottom of her face off while she was sleeping. True. 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.360 Is that true? It is true, But there's and I 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:32.520 couldn't get a straight answer. I read a bunch of 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.840 articles and follow up articles on this today and I 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.160 still didn't get what I think is the absolute truth 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.880 of what happened. Some people um claimed she was committing suicide, 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.560 and then the doctors denied it, but then one doctor 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:49.400 said that she had tried to commit suicide. And um, 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.320 then the the whole dog situation. You know, black labs, 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:55.720 I mean, you're a dog guy. They aren't to believe 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.240 that a lab would do that, right, So what they 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.120 think might have happened was she was out and the 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.840 dog was concerned because they thought she was dead, and 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.360 was pawing at her face and became really agitated and 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.040 upset and pawed and scratched to the point where you know, 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.720 there was blood probably, and then started chewing up like 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:18.560 trying to evidently trying to wake her up. But there's 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.720 speculation about that too. But they but they think the 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.079 dog did do it for some reason or another. They 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.040 think the dog did it for a reason, trying to 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:30.280 arouse her from her slumber. Um, because I think I 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.040 read someone else said that you'd have to be so 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:35.520 far out of it to not wake up with that 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.280 kind of pain sensation that it had to have been 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.080 a suicide attempt. So I thought it was a little 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.600 odd that she took pills and fell asleep on the couch, right, 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:45.719 I mean, yeah, And then she came out later and 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:47.560 said that she hit her head and was knocked out, 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:49.920 so I'm not exactly sure what happened. All I know 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:51.800 is the dog was put to sleep, which really is 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:54.320 upsetting to me. That is upsetting, especially if it was 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.360 trying to rescue her. I mean, the whole thing is upsetting. 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:02.120 Regardless of what happened. Isabel Dean Noir got a face transplant. 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.760 She did. Indeed, h this is the first major news 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.760 uh worthy face transplant, which I still didn't hear about. 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.000 That was a rough here for you. Um so uh. 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:18.320 Apparently they could have taken tissue from her chest to 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:22.760 repair the damage, but she wouldn't have had very much movement, right, 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.160 It would have just looked like a face, but not 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:27.679 really exactly a fake eye or something. Right. But they 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.120 what they want is feeling and function going on. They 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.360 wanted to be able to smell and feel and have 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.520 all the senses reacting, and that's the ideal. Most surgeons 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.960 are perfectionists. Yeah, So, so what they did was they 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:44.480 found a donor. Here's what we're getting to, the ethical aspects. 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.840 Can we jump ahead and move around a little bit please? Okay, 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:52.480 there's the only person who can be a face donor 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.960 is one who has to be on life support on 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.040 life support, Well, someone has to be alive, right, but 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.800 but you wouldn't give up your face? Sure, no, no 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.280 one's that. I just want to get specific. It has 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.240 it has to come from a live donor, and the 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.280 only scenario where that could happen is if you're brain 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.240 dead on life support and then the family has to 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.800 agree to pull the plug essentially, right, And remember we 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.280 did the how comas work and we were we were 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:21.920 positing whether or not people feel pain in deep vegetative states, 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.480 and you gotta hope not when they're taking your face, 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.760 because that's exactly what they do. They go to the donor, 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.079 they moved the donor into the operating theater, they take 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.080 the face off. I imagined they cut around the scalp 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.439 and then down behind the ears, maybe in front of 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.959 the ears, whatever, below the chin, and that would be 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:45.120 a full face transplant, as our illustration shows, they put 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:47.760 it on ice. Well, this was a partial face transplant, okay, 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:49.480 so it would have been like the lower part of 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:51.679 the face. But whatever part of the face you need, 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.960 whether it's full or partial, it would be cut off removed, 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:57.600 depending on whether or not any of the connective tissue 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:02.800 was needed. Still any bone, any fat muscles, all of 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.080 that stuff may be taken as well, and then it's 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.520 again put on ice or whatever, transported to wherever the 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.520 recipient is. And then all of these things are reattached. 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:18.000 Blood vessels are reattached, a connective tissue, all this stuff. Um, 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.040 and you have to do it in such a way. Well. 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.160 Number one, skin tones kind of a big, a big consideration. 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:25.520 To find a match. Um, you want to find somebody, 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:27.600 you have to do h l a testing or matching, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.679 which is that antigen testing to make sure that that 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.640 you have a similar enough immune system that there won't 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.640 be a rejection. Um, you may have to put bone down, 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:39.840 as was the case with a Chinese guy in what 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.400 two thousand six and uh, he was malled by a bear? Right, 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.720 what what is going on? Right? He was malled by 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.080 a bear. And this was a unique case different from 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.400 the French woman because he was missing skin and part 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.640 of the bone in his nose and cheeks. He was 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.280 a huge challenge. Hers was just skin in and his 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:06.200 required quite a bit more. And we're talking like teams 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.800 of fifteen to twenty doctors over the course of fifteen 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.880 to twenty hours. Well with Madame de Noir. She had 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.360 a team of fifty doctors. They started at ten thirty 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.559 at night and they finished at four the next day, 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.800 four after four in the afternoon, went straight through the 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.120 irony is as if she did try to commit suicide. 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:26.800 Her face was donated by a woman who failed in 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.440 a suicide attach. Yeah, how about that. Yeah it's a 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.280 little odd, but yeah, okay. So they they also practice 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:39.040 the people of rats, cadavers, rabbits. There's a picture of 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.280 I guess one of their test subjects, a rabbit with 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:45.680 a face transplant on page zero, the first page of 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:49.080 this article, and it's just cute as a button. But 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.400 it's also furry. We don't have the luxury of fur 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.400 as humans, so they kind of have to do a 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.960 relatively good job reconstructing a face, and it usually takes 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:02.840 more than once. They'll be several phases of surgery. Yeah, 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.440 it shows, uh, And I've seen pictures of the frenchwoman 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.680 over the course of different surgeries, getting better and better. Um. 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:10.920 What I thought was interesting was that once you have 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.000 the surgery, you need to be on these immuno suppressant 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.600 drugs for the rest of your life. So it's it's 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:19.160 good that you're able to live through this and get 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.520 a new face. But these drugs also put a serious 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:24.880 DNT and your ability to survive and live a long 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.720 life right, And apparently Madame de Noir is not really 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.520 helping things along. She refuses to quit smoking, and I 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:33.720 thought you might respect that, and the doctors are like, 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.560 come on, she smoked pretty soon afterward too. Yeah. Well, 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:39.320 I mean, if you're a smoker, you're a smoker, dude, 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:41.880 face transplant or no, I guess. So. Yeah, my first 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.640 father in law got like shunts put in. He was 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.480 smoking and golfing like a couple of days later. Really, 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.240 he just wouldn't stop heart shunts. I should say, okay, 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.960 cardiac shunts. Um. Now, Josh, these are all partial transplants, 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:57.120 even in the case of the one from China, and 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.160 as of the writing of this article, we actually need 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.200 to update this article. There were no full transplants, but 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:04.400 there have been since then. Chuck, I have to say 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.720 you were killing it today the external research. You corrected 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.120 me at least once, if not twice. I am proud 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:16.160 of Chuckers compass head hearts Chuckers um. So yes, Josh, 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.000 I'm ignoring your praise there have been two transplants that 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:22.440 I know of. There may be more, but I've noted 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.640 a couple that have happened that are full facial transplants. 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:27.640 One of them was a woman in Chicago who they 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.760 haven't named, keeping that quiet, who the doctor basically said 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.440 she didn't have a nose, she didn't have a midface 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.960 at all. And they were able to transplant Josh almost 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:42.920 eighty three square inches of skin with muscle bone, upper lip, 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:47.560 and nose from the donor still attached. Isn't that amazing? 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.960 And Uh, the Cleveland clinic is where all this is 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:52.880 going on. Man, if you need a face transplant, you 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.280 want to be in Cleveland. Uh. And then there was 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.280 a man, a Frenchman who had the elephant man disease. Yeah, 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:04.280 I see you have a sure there, kenseee wow played 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.520 a difference yea. And this was just um March of 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:12.040 two thousand and eight. He had a transplant and new lips, 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:14.919 new cheeks, new nose, new mouth. We should we should 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.920 publish this that that before and after photo and a blog. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.120 After the blog, this podcast comes out. What do you think? Yeah, 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.520 let me look and see if we can get right. Yeah, 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.680 I think we can. But yeah, though, so apparently they 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:30.400 can do full facial transplants now, it's it's an amazing 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.560 and amazing thing. Well, that brings up another ethical concern besides, 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:35.880 you know, taking the face of somebody who's not dead 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:40.720 but his brain dead. Um. The other ethical concerned that 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.159 that some parts of the medical community worry about is 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.199 what happens when the wealthy are like, you know, I 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.399 don't want collagen or botox. I'm just gonna get a 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.480 facial transplant from a poor, brain dead person. You know, 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.560 I'll pay the family like dollars and take the face. 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:00.679 I saw that in the article and don't buy it 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:04.560 because right now, like, they do a good job with 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:09.000 these transplants, but the end results certainly doesn't. You know. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.359 If you're like, if your aim is to be extremely 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.239 handsome or beautiful, that's not what you're gonna get right 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.560 now with a face right now. Sure, but again, Chuck, 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.480 we went from the first kidney transplant to face transplants 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:21.520 in fifty years. Where are we going to be fifty 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.800 years from now? And I mean, really, is there anything 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.880 stopping vanity? No, there's not. And it's especially especially if 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:33.679 we harness um genetics so that we can age right, 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.280 we can we we we harness longevity, um, but we 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.840 still kind of age poorly. You don't think that people 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:41.720 are going to pay for a face transplant by e 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:43.800 D if we're living to like one twenty on average. 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.359 What I think will happen by in fifty years is 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.199 there will be other ways to make yourself beautiful. Like 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.199 you said, to stop the aging process, there will be 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.960 other ways besides uh, finding a beautiful brain dead person 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:57.879 to take their face. I think that's just that's just me. 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.959 We'll see, of course, you know, learning I'll be long gone. 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.040 Both of us will check. Yeah, I think I'm going 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:07.959 first too. Don't make your face no, And actually, let 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:10.640 me also say this. This is such a tangential aside. 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.000 Did you know that if you are an organ donor, 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.040 you should and you have a problem with your head 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:21.320 being used for cosmetic surgery practice, you have to specify 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:25.080 I do not want my head use for cosmetic surgery practice. Yeah, 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.320 because they if you go into a med school that 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:33.399 focuses on cosmetic surgery heads and they practice on you 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:38.199 doing faceless and stuff. Interesting. Yeah, so organ donor, and 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.480 actually I need to make that little caveat there, like, 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.080 do not use my face, it's too pretty. I wonder 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.679 if I noted that you can use my face, but 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.440 let me wear my flat cap. That would be cool. Yeah, 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:51.680 it would like your tongue hanging out in one eye 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:55.040 open still but your flat caps on cool to the end. Nice. So, 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:56.760 of course, the best thing you could do is learned 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:58.479 to be pretty on the inside, and then you wouldn't 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:00.560 have to worry about anything unless you're all. Buy a bear, 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:02.600 your black live, choose the bottom of your face off. 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.800 Then you get a pass for the face transplant thing. 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:07.360 You want to learn more about that. It's a really 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.639 cool article. You can type how face transplants work into 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.720 the handy search bar and how stuff works dot com? 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:18.160 And are we still doing plug fest? Alright? Our producer 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.200 Jerry says yes, So let's do it, Chuck. Let's start 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:26.480 with the blog abbreviated version. Yes, blog good, blog fun 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:32.280 Josh Chuck Right, blog fans read blog fire bad? All right? 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.960 Moving on, Okay, the stuff you should know super Stuff 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:41.000 Guide to the Economy that's on iTunes, worth the money 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.840 getting good feedback. Type in super stuffed on the search 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.879 bar on iTunes and you can get it all right, 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.240 plug fest is over, Okay, so then it's time for 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:56.520 reader mail. And uh, I see that that podcast finally 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.320 came out where we said hi Ku is dead once 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:02.080 and for all. Yeah, yeah, that was great. It's interesting 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.280 we still have some people writing in that are upset 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:07.800 about the lack of hikus, and then um many others 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:10.199 writing in saying thank you because I was tired of 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:12.160 it as well. Well. In case anyone didn't get the memo, 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.000 let's play that little clip from that that listener mail 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:17.480 where we do say that hi Ku theaters dead. Here 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:22.520 it is right, Josh. This is significant because today is 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:27.040