New Heart Helps Treat Illness, Lets Man Resume Normal Life

On Feb. 4, Harvard University biostatistician Robert Zackin got a heart transplant. After enduring the wait for a lifesaving organ, he became one of only three HIV-positive patients to receive such an operation since 1996. Zackin's heart problems had multiple causes, the most devastating being long-term chemotherapy for Kaposi's sarcoma. "I was quite sure that I was not eligible for a transplant because of my HIV status," the 38- year-old research scientist said.

"At most centers, you could not even get past the door. Some centers did agree to evaluate me, and the cardiologists were in favor of it at that point, but then the board that had to decide if I was eligible was generally against it." Then Zackin found that the Cleveland Clinic Foundation was willing to consider people with HIV. Now, after a successful operation, Zackin is back to working out in the gym six to seven days a week. He said he would not blame discrimination for his problems in becoming eligible for a heart transplant, but rather ignorance and fear. "On the medical side, there might be well-founded concern about immune suppression and drug interaction," he said. "On the political side, there is the question of a limited number of organs and who deserves them."

Zackin, whose private insurance paid for the procedure, was released from the hospital 10 days after the surgery and has done well since the procedure under the surveillance of doctors in Cleveland and Boston. Apart from the scar, he said he feels no symptoms. And despite fears that the immune-suppressing drugs needed to prevent organ rejection would allow the virus to spread, his HIV levels have not climbed. "My HIV has not progressed at all," he said. "I am doing now what I have done for years," he said. He has just added more pills to his daily regimen, he said.

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