Of the 50,000 wounded U.S. troops that have returned home from the battlefield, about 440 have been left unable to conceive children.
The military is now looking to change that by funding research into lab-grown testicles at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina.
They would be grown using stem cells from the wounded vets themselves and would be able to change their lives forever.
Scientists warn that this testicle procedure over a decade away from being approved and thoroughly tested. Other options to prevent these tragedies are currently in use in other countries.
Aside from wearing kevlar over the groin, the British give troops the option to have semen frozen and stored before deployment. They also take sperm from those with severe gentile injuries as a matter of procedure.
From the Telegraph:
The US military is funding research into lab-grown testicles for soldiers whose battlefield injuries leave them unable to conceive children.
More than 50,000 American troops have been wounded in action in Iraq andAfghanistan, the majority by improvised explosive devices.
The catastrophic effects of those explosions can be seen in the hundreds of soldiers who have lost arms and legs, those who can no longer dress themselves and those who can no longer walk.
But for some soldiers returning from war, the most devastating injury is not immediately visible.
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