Patients need to take powerful immuno-suppressants which have side-effects and can themselves damage the body.

BBC: Re-conditioning lungs for transplant

"Early success at hand transplantation can be achieved with the use of currently available immuno-suppressive drugs, " he said.

BBC: Hand transplant 'a success'

If taken from the patient being treated, they would not be rejected, so that immuno-suppressants would no longer be needed.

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While not dangerous, and often symptomless in more healthy patients, in the elderly, weak or immuno-suppressed, MRSA can cause fever and pneumonia.

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He said the drug would slow down the progress of the disease and allowed patients to take advantage of other treatments like immuno-therapy.

BBC: Last Updated: Friday, 9 March 2007, 10:19 GMT

The tumor's growth was accelerated by the immuno-suppressive drugs Millington was taking to prevent his body rejecting the transplanted lungs, the inquest heard.

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He suggested that the ideal candidate for a hand transplant would be a patient who was "already taking immuno-suppressive drugs for a life-threatening problem".

BBC: Hand transplant 'a success'

As an animal rights activist I can chime in as follows: were it not for the technologies of immuno-contraception (birth control for other species) there would be an even more vast realm of needless suffering.

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And, if vertebrate predators are to be ultimately and non-violently dealt with, New Zealand will have to embrace, in my opinion, immuno-contraception for possums, rats and mustelids, just as so many other countries have done so for countless numbers of species -from deer to elephants.

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