Within a year, a young soldier with a horrific injury from a bomb blast in Afghanistan will have an operation that has never been performed in the United States: a penis transplant. The organ will come from a deceased donor and the surgeons, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, say they expect it to start working in a matter of months, developing urinary function, sensation and, eventually, the ability to have sex. From 2001 to 2013, 1367 US men in military service sustained wounds to the genitals in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defence Trauma Registry. Nearly all were under 35 years old and were hurt by homemade bombs, commonly...
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