Doctors Announce First Successful U.S. Hand Transplant

Does anybody pay attention to No.2? A team of surgeons in Louisville, Ky., led by Dr. Warren C. Breidenbach hopes so. The team announced on Monday that it had succeeded in transplanting onto the arm of a patient the functioning hand of a donor. The trouble for the Breidenbach team is that the first -- and, so far, successful -- such transplant occurred last September in Lyon, France. Perhaps anticipating being beaten to the punch, the team had announced their upcoming plans for the "successful" hand transplant operation last July. "But that announcement prompted the U.S. surgical team to come under some ridicule," says TIME assistant managing editor Philip Elmer-DeWitt, "because most research teams usually wait until the results of an operation are in to claim success. Now that they've crossed the finish line, however, will there be anyone left to cheer?"

The race between the U.S. and the French team underscores the fact that medical research has become a much more competitive business in recent years. Prestige and research dollars often flow more freely to those who are first. Increasingly the challenge for medicine in the years ahead will be to make sure that No. 1 and No. 2 -- and Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 100 -- all get the proper recognition and support on the basis of medical merit.