Woman Denied Liver Transplant Due to Alcoholism—but She Hadn’t Had a Drop to Drink

Instead of approving her for a liver transplant, doctors pushed this woman to enter a substance abuse program after detecting the presence of alcohol in her body. The problem? She hadn’t had anything to drink...

Life or Death

For Christine Leland, the stakes were high. The Pennsylvania resident had traveled to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center seeking a liver transplant, which she needed in order to survive. At first, the UPMC transplant team said no—and it wasn’t the first time that Leland had been denied.

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The More You Know

  • A baby can cost new parents 750 hours of sleep.
  • In 1966 and 1967, soldiers testing Agent Orange in Canada were told the chemical was completely safe and sprayed it on each other to cool off.
  • The first American woman to go to medical school was admitted as a joke. Geneva Medical School thought it was joke when Elizabeth Blackwell applied to attend 1847. She graduated in 1849, started her own practice, and opened an infirmary for the poor.
  • Earth is 4.54 billion years old.
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