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Go-ahead for first full-face transplant
Surgeons at London’s Royal Free hospital began whittling down a short list of patients who are likely to become the world’s first full-face transplant recipients. More than 30 severely disfigured burns victims from around the world have already approached the surgical team, who were recently given permission to carry out the groundbreaking operation at the end of a long and hard-fought battle within the medical profession.
The procedure will be far more complicated than the partial transplant carried out on a woman in France last November as surgeon Peter Butler intends to remove the whole face from a brain-dead donor and transplant it on to the patient. Approval has been given for four face transplants, the first of which could happen next year.
Mr Butler, the plastic and reconstruction surgeon who leads the team, said they would continue to take “a cautious and careful approach” and would not be rushed. “It may be many months before we are ready to carry out an operation.”
He said: “This is a very new and important way of helping people with terrible facial injuries such as burns and we will continue to take infinite care to ensure the best results.”
Approval looked as if it might be delayed at the eleventh hour as opponents of the transplants, including surgeons and the Changing Faces charity which supports badly disfigured patients, lobbied the ethics committee. They demanded it wait for a report from an expert committee of the Royal College of Surgeons.
But the ethics committee, which has been considering the proposals for four years, decided not to be swayed. Andrew Way, the chief executive of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, said the decision was taken after the most detailed scrutiny of the results of more than a decade of research by Mr Butler’s team.
Climate change could tilt the world’s economy into the worst global recession in recent history, a report warned. Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist with the World Bank, warned that governments needed to tackle the problem head-on by cutting emissions or face economic ruin. The findings turned economic argument about global warming on its head by insisting that fighting global warming will save industrial nations money. The US refused to join the Kyoto protocol, the international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions, because George Bush said it would harm the economy.
The contents of the Stern review into the economics of climate change — commissioned by the Treasury — have been kept secret since the nature of the work was revealed to the world’s environment ministers in Mexico last month. But Sir David King, the government’s chief scientific adviser, gave the Guardian a preview of its main findings.
Speaking at a climate change conference in Birmingham, he said: “All of (Stern’s) detailed modelling out to the year 2100 is going to indicate first of all that if we don’t take global action we are going to see a massive downturn in global economies.” He added: “If no action is taken we will be faced with the kind of downturn that has not been seen since the great depression and the two world wars.” — Dawn/The Guardian News Service
Two satellites lifted off recently on a $550-million mission to observe the Sun in three dimensions. Carrying 16 instruments each, the satellites are to help scientists predict the billion-ton eruptions of electrified gas and deadly particles known as coronal mass ejections that cause the Northern Lights and can disrupt power grids on Earth.
The mission, called Stereo, for Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, is the first in which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will use the tug of the Moon’s gravity to send spacecraft to their final orbits. To gather 3-D views of the Sun, the two satellites have to fly in separate orbits so they can perceive depth, like a pair of human eyes.
The orbits will closely track Earth’s, but the two satellites will gradually separate, so that in four years they will be on opposite sides of the Sun. The project scientist for the mission, Michael Kaiser, said the coronal mass ejections were the most powerful solar phenomena.
“They also cause electrical damage to spacecraft that are in orbit or even the ground power systems and, conceivably, even astronauts if they were exposed to one of these storms,” Mr. Kaiser said.
Media companies have published numerous articles on global warming and greenhouse emissions in recent years. Now, a couple of large publishers are starting to think about their own impact on the environment.Time Incorporated participated in a study published this year by the Heinz Centre that calculated the amount of carbon dioxide emissions produced over the entire process of publishing Time and In Style.
Other magazine companies, including the Hearst Corporation, now say they are studying the Heinz report to consider the implications for their magazines, and Rupert Murdoch recently announced that the News Corporation is developing a plan to become entirely carbon neutral, meaning the company will reduce its carbon emissions and try to offset the emissions left over.
“We’ve recognised that these are issues that are important to our readers and, increasingly, important to our advertisers,” said David J. Refkin, the director of sustainable development for the Time Inc. division of Time Warner and a member of the board of the Heinz Centre. “We’re starting to see a movement where becoming carbon neutral is something many companies are considering.”
Large-scale manufacturing is, of course, better known as a source of the greenhouse gases that many scientists say cause global warming. Still, the paper industry is not without its impact.
Because of its consumption of energy, the industry — which includes magazines, newspapers, catalogues and writing paper — emits the fourth-highest level of carbon dioxide among manufacturers, according to a 2002 study by the Energy Information Administration, a division of the Department of Energy.
The paper industry follows the chemical, petroleum and coal products, and primary metals industries. — Dawn/The New York Times News Service
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