On face transplantation: Ethical slippage and quiet death in experimental biomedicine (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate) |
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| Authors: | Samuel Taylor‐Alexander |
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| Institution: | Teaching Fellow in the Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland. He trained in Anthropology at the Australian National University and Science and Technology Studies at Harvard University. His email is stay085@auckland.ac.nz. |
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| Abstract: | More and more teams around the globe are gaining ethical clearance to perform face transplant surgery. The operation is a highly experimental medical treatment and patients who are otherwise healthy are dying as a consequence of submitting themselves to the operation. This article is concerned with the quiet deaths and ethical slippages that are emerging in this new medical terrain. It suggests that an examination of the relationship between nationalism and medical advancement is necessary to understand this slippage, because inter alia the surgery has been afforded national significance. |
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