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Happy2Bhere
Forum Leader Username: Happy2bhere
Post Number: 4353 Registered: 02-2008
| Posted on Saturday, November 12, 2011 - 12:44 pm: |
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Some gravely ill alcoholics who need a liver transplant shouldn't have to prove they can stay sober for six months to get one, doctors say in a study that could intensify the debate over whether those who destroy their organs by drinking deserve new ones. In the small French study, the vast majority of the patients who got a liver without the wait stopped drinking after their surgery and were sober years later. The study involved patients who were suffering from alcohol-related hepatitis so severe that they were unlikely to survive a six-month delay. The findings, reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, could boost demand for livers, already in scarce supply, and reopen a bitter dispute over whether alcoholics should even get transplants. The controversy peaked in the 1990s when celebrities with drinking problems - Larry Hagman, David Crosby and Mickey Mantle - got liver transplants. More recently, British soccer star George Best received a new liver in 2002, started drinking again and died three years later Also, far fewer fell off the wagon than expected: Only three of the transplant patients started drinking again two to three years later, a rate much lower than the estimated 30 percent relapse rate in general among alcoholic patients who meet the six-month sobriety rule. Ol' Bob.
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Liver Giver
Forum Leader Username: Beteboop
Post Number: 870 Registered: 10-2007
| Posted on Friday, November 18, 2011 - 09:53 pm: |
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As always Bob, your perspective is enlightening and makes a person think. In this case, I am receiving this as a "do not judge a book by its cover" message. Thank you for the message
Dawn Forum Leader Living Organ Donation Liver Donor 11/19/07 to brother Anthony Good and bad things happen in life, but what matters, what defines us, is how we handle them |
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