Chimp Victim Hospitalized After Body Rejects Face Transplant

A Connecticut woman who received a face transplant five years ago after being attacked by a chimpanzee was hospitalized again this week because her body was rejecting the transplant.

Doctors had been trying to wean the woman—Charla Nash, 62—off anti-rejection drugs as part of an experiment funded by the military. The experiment aimed to find solutions that would help soldiers who receive transplants and often have to take anti-rejection drugs, which can have serious side effects, for the rest of their lives, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, director of plastic surgery transplantation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said Nash has now been removed from the experiment and her face transplant has not been threatened.

“We expect this rejection episode to be resolved within the coming week,” he said, the AP reported.

“I gave it my all and know my participation in the study will still be beneficial, said Nash, who lost her nose, lips, eyelids and hands in the 2009 attack by her employer’s chimpanzee, according to the AP. “I’d do it all over again, if I could. The men and women serving our country are the true heroes.”