World's first hand transplant fails

Surgeons in Britain have amputated the hand of the world's first hand transplant patient. They claim he refused to follow treatment, leading his body to reject the limb.

Clint Hallam of New Zealand appealed to surgeons to remove the hand, according to Australian surgeon Earl Owen. Doctors carried out the delicate microsurgery Saturday in London.

In 1998, an international team of doctors gave Hallam a new hand, transplanted from a dead man's body. The operation in Lyon, France took 13 hours.

Within a month, he could wiggle his fingers.

But Hallam frustrated the medical team by not keeping in touch with them, and refusing to follow critical drug treatment.

"I do not call it a technical failure, I do not call it immunological failure, I call it lack of compliance," said Dr. Nadey Hakim.

Hallam told a British newspaper that the medication's side effects made his life unbearable.

Hallam lost his right hand in a chainsaw accident. At the time, he was serving a two-year jail sentence for fraud in New Zealand.

Since the first hand transplant, there have been six successful surgeries.