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Hollywood marketing man is donor in first male face swap
Sophie Goodchild, Health and Social Affairs Correspondent22 May 2009
A Vietnam War veteran has become the first man in the world to have a face transplant.
James Maki today unveiled the results only weeks after a 17-hour operation to replace the middle section of his face.
The 59-year-old lost his nose, cheeks and top lip after falling onto an electric subway rail in 2005.
The man whose face was used for the surgery was a marketing guru well known in Hollywood who had died of heart failure.
Mr Maki is the second person in the US to have a face transplant and opted for surgery after seeing a doctor talking about the procedure on television.
He revealed he had rarely left his home after his accident for fear of other people's reactions.
Today the transplant patient said it was four days before doctors let him see his new features.
He told his surgeon: "I just wanted to see what the new Jim looked like. I can't believe you made me look so close to what I used to look like."
His donor was a former sex-advice columnist and successful marketing expert whose parents had survived Auschwitz.
Father-of-four Joseph Helfgot, founder of leading film research firm MarketCast, died last month aged 60 after a heart transplant.
Helgfot, a former sociologist whose parents survived Auschwitz, was behind innovative marketing campaigns for films including the thriller Se7en, Dances With Wolves and Silence of the Lambs.
His wife Susan Whitman and family not only donated his face but also his liver then re-donated the heart which had been transplanted into him.
A team at Boston's Brigham and
Women's hospital led by Dr Bohdan Pomahac carried out the operation last month.
They found Mr Helfgot had very similar skin tone as Mr Maki which made it a good match.
The first successful face transplant was performed in France in 2005 on Isabelle Dinoire, a 38-year-old woman who had been mauled by a dog.
A Chinese man who underwent a facial transplant in China in 2006 after being attacked by a bear died in 2008.
