First Hand Transplant Operation Undone

A bit of medical history has been undone. The first man to receive a transplanted hand had it removed last night.

Allen Pizzey reports his doctors blame the patient for the reversal.

Clint Hallam made history in 1998 when he became the first person to receive a transplanted hand. The limb from a brain dead man was attached in a 13-hour operation, and within a few months there was every reason to believe the patient was doing everything right.

But last night that hand was amputated at Hallam's request. The doctors said Hallam was suffering irreversible rejection because he had stopped taking anti-rejection drugs.

"It failed because no medication was taken by the patient for the last 60 days or even more. Transplantation does not work without drugs," says surgeon Nadey Hakim.

Hallam justified his decision this way. "I am convinced that there has come a stage with the number of rejections that I have experienced that my hand, that yes my body has said, or my mind has said, enough is enough," says Hallam.

At least six similar transplants--including one in the United States--have been done since Hallam's groundbreaking surgery, and all of them are reported to be doing well.

Hallam turned out to be a controversial first choice. He had not revealed that he lost his hand in a prison accident in New Zealand while serving a sentence for fraud. There were months when the doctors did not hear from him.

"I do not call it a technical failure. I do not call it immunological failure. I call it lack of compliance," says Hakim.

Hallam tried to have his hand removed by surgeons in California, but they refused apparently fearing bad publicity. So today it was cut off by one of the doctors who sewed it on because he said it was in the best interest of the patient.

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