Brain-to-Brain Transplant Patient ‘Doing Well’

The first patient to undergo a brain-to-brain transplant in the United States was discharged from the hospital Friday as scientists called the decision to perform the surgery with cells from an aborted fetus “courageous.”

The 52-year-old Parkinson’s disease patient was released from the University of Colorado Health Science Center two days after surgeons had implanted cells from the brain of the aborted fetus into his brain.

“He’s doing well,” said Dr. Curt Freed, a professor of medicine and pharmacology who headed the team that performed the experimental operation.

The patient, whose name was withheld, will be monitored closely, but Freed said he did not expect to see any results from the operation for three to six months.

The nine-hour operation involved drilling a quarter-size hole in the Denver man’s skull and repeatedly injecting the fetal cells into his brain in the hope of correcting a chemical imbalance that has crippled him, Freed said.

The operation, similar to ones performed in Mexico, Sweden, Cuba, Britain and China, with mixed results, pitted doctors who believe that the approach may help victims of many incurable brain diseases against anti-abortionists, who fear that it will encourage more abortions to obtain fetal tissue.

Dr. Abraham Lieberman, a professor of neurology at New York University and chairman of the medical advisory board of the American Parkinson’s Disease Assn., praised Freed’s efforts.

Anti-abortionists have opposed the procedure, saying that, in addition to possibly encouraging more abortions, they feared it could prompt women to become pregnant just to abort the fetus so its tissue could be used, perhaps for a relative.

Calling anti-abortionists’ objections “absolutely ridiculous,” Freed said he had carefully arranged for the mother of the 7-week-old fetus to be asked to allow him to use the brain cells only after she had already had the abortion.