I hate my new hand, transplant man tells doctors

The man who was given the world's first hand transplant wants it removed by surgeons because he hates the sight of it.

The man who was given the world's first hand transplant wants it removed by surgeons because he hates the sight of it.

Clint Hallam, who two years ago underwent the operation carried out by a British surgeon, claims the hand no longer works and that he is being made ill by anti-rejection drugs.

Mr Hallam, 53, has gone to Lyon, where he received the hand, to convince the French member of the transplant team to amputate it.

"I can no longer do anything with it. It just hangs uselessly by my side," said Mr Hallam, a New Zealander. "It looks hideous because it is withered and I don't see any point in keeping it any longer."

Mr Hallam had pleaded for years with doctors in Australia to give him a new hand after he lost his in an accident while serving a prison sentence in the Eighties.

Last night, the transplant surgeon Nadey Hakim of St Mary's Hospital, London, appealed to Mr Hallam not to seek a doctor prepared to remove the hand. "There would be no justification in removing it unless it was severely rejecting and his health was threatened," Mr Hakim said. "We did a really good job on Clint's hand."

He said the transplant had been a success and that Mr Hallam's hand had worked well within months of the operation.