Word: graftings
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...stories no matter what system you have," says Peter Hoffman of the U.S. Parole Commission. At the same time, those horror stories tend to obscure the reality that both the parole system and the fixed-time approach have some advantages. A few states now appear to be trying to graft some of parole's benefits onto fixed-sentencing plans. In 1982 California legislators, for example, passed a law permitting inmates to earn reductions of up to 50% in their sentences by participating in work or study programs. That kind of early release, of course, is just parole by another...
...question: no one in his family matched his cell type. But in the past few years, researchers at Harvard and New York City's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center have developed ways of chemically treating bone marrow so that transplants can be made even when the grafted marrow is imperfectly matched. These new methods made it possible for David to receive a marrow graft from his 15-year-old sister, Katherine...
...major peril in transplanting mismatched bone marrow has always been a rejection problem called graft-vs.-host disease. Even with treated marrow, there is some risk. According to Dr. Richard O'Reilly of Sloan Kettering, the disease is "the exact opposite of what we talk about with kidney or heart patients. Instead of the patient rejecting the organ, the cells that go in as the transplant literally reject the patient." If unchecked, the disease eventually destroys the liver, intestine and other vital organs. Early symptoms are similar to David's: nausea, diarrhea, fever...
David's doctor, Immunologist William Shearer, is hopeful that his famous patient is not suffering a graft-vs.-host reaction. Instead, he suspects that the symptoms are the positive signs of "an incipient immune system beginning to develop in a child who had none." Blood tests already suggest that his sister's cells are taking hold. Says Shearer: "We expect to know in a month." Now that he has been exposed to the outside world, David will never return to the bubble. For the present, he remains quarantined, but his family may visit his room wearing surgical garb...
...heart disease. Arteriosclerosis, the buildup of fatty deposits in the arteries, continues to worsen no matter what the treatment (although patients who quit smoking, reduce fat in their diets and exercise regularly may improve their prognoses). So relentless is the disease that in 10% of bypass patients the newly grafted blood vessel becomes completely blocked within six months of surgery. For the more fortunate majority, blood will continue to flow through the bypass graft for years; however, other arteries may become clogged...