Madrid - Spanish authorities have come under criticism for releasing information on the donor in the country's first face transplant operation, press reports said Friday. A medical team comprising more than 30 people completed the 16- hour operation on a 43-year-old man Wednesday at La Fe hospital in the eastern city of Valencia.
The Health Ministry and regional officials revealed that the donor was a 35-year-old man who was killed in a traffic accident.
Those details were sufficient for media to identify the donor whose nationality, profession, family situation and hobbies were reported on.
It was, however, illegal to reveal the identity of donors, legal experts said. The Health Ministry said the donor's family was planning legal action against those responsible for the leak.
Revealing the identity of a donor could damage the transplant patient's psychological health, the donor's family, and discourage other potential donors, a spokesman for the Health Ministry warned.
He promised that the ministry would be more careful about releasing information in the future.
Spanish experts described the operation as the eighth of its kind in the world, following others that have been performed in France, China and the United States.
The world's first person to receive a face transplant was French woman Isabelle Dinoire in 2005.
