"This Article Could Save Your Life" - Jacob Anderson-Minshall

Kenneth Teasley was 27 years old when he learned he was not only HIV-positive but only had 23 percent kidney function and, at some point, would require dialysis. To prolong the inevitable, he made numerous lifestyle changes to lower his blood pressure.  He also stopped taking pain medication for the gout he experienced as a side effect of kidney failure. Because of the way HIV can attack the immune system, people living with the virus were once considered too high risk to even receive organ transplants. But in the 1990s, the federal government granted a few research facilities the opportunity to study the impact of organ transplants on people living with HIV. Sander Florman, MD, director of Mount Sinai’s Recanti and Miller Transplant Institute and professor of surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai said, Mount Sinai was one of the first “committed to the transplantation of people with HIV since way before it was ever popular. I think the first HIV-positive transplant was done in 1998 here.” Dr. Florman explains further that Mount Sinai found many of the anti-rejection medicines to actually work synergistically with the HIV medicines to prevent the virus. “And that’s part of the secret to why people with HIV can have successful organ transplants.” Dr. Florman performed Teasley’s historic transplant surgery, which was “the first time we’ve been legally allowed to use HIV-positive organs” at Mount Sinai.

- Sander Florman, MD, Director, Recanti and Miller Transplant Institute, Professor, Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

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