Slashdot Mirror
Pig-to-Human Transplants On Their Way
cscx writes: "From the folks who brought you Dolly the cloned sheep, come genetically modified cloned pigs which they claim may eventually be able to donate their organs to humans for transplant usage. Who knows, we may make that mark on your driver's license obsolete after all."
Is this gonna be kosher or not?
Okay, so fifty years ago a patient would have died from a failing organ, now that patient lives. Is this a case where the strongest no longer survive? Are we on our way to overpopulation? Eh, that's off topic. But, after we all praise this as a life saver, what are the consequences?
The Political Programmer
Many people may find it squeemish to have an organ of a pig in their bodies, but it is a good alternative to death.
Help I'm a rock.
MMMM, Bacon.... drool :p~~~~
Now after I block my veins with fatty deposits, and destroy my heart, the same pig can now give me a new heart? Awesome....
Wasn't this covered already?
Call me when they have human-to-animal transplants...
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Here is what the CIA has to say on the subject.
Demo Trends CIA report
I watch all of this carefully. For many years, they made insulin for humans from pigs (and then later cows). About 20 years ago, they started producing real human insulin. The pig/cow insulins were fairly close to human, and worked well enough to keep people alive.
In recent years, they've been able to transplant islet cells from human pancreases into type 1 diabetics, essentially making them non-diabetic. However, each procedure requires two prancreases, so that drives the cost and effort up. If they could use pig pancreases instead, it'd probably be quite easy and even affordable (once you consider the cost of insulin and all the other supplies) to perform this procedure more.
Of course, the major obstacle they still face is rejection. Beyond the normal sort of organ rejection problem is the fact that type 1 diabetics' bodies were the ones that killed off the insulin producing cells in the first place. A lot of the anti-rejection drugs have their own nasty side-effects, and I'm not sure a life of those is any better than a life of injecting insulin.
The reference is to the "Male" marking on your license.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
When we look at tissue grafting and associated histocompatibility issues, we usually think of proteins. That is, after all, how the histocompatibility genes were discovered first in mice then humans, and the modern field of immunogenetics was founded. However, the article points to sugars and how their absence can so lessen acute xenograft rejection. The role of sugars in cell recognition can be found in the January 1993 issue of Scientific American.
We need more philosophy and less technology.
This is the perfect forum to try out your pork chops.
Gotta wake up! Gotta wake up!
If we make these xenotransplant pigs intelligent, they'll be able to give informed consent.
This way, if any right groups challenge the ethics of the transplant, the hospital adminstrators can whip out a donor consent card with the pig' little hoof print.
Or course, we'd have to make them really gullible, so they actually volunteer when asked, instead of rolling their eyes and saying "yeah, right!"
I don't know about you, but I find that a slow excruciating death makes me a tad more squeemish than a pig's organs :)
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
And my heart was going like beep beep beep beep beep. And then my bloop pressure dropped in half and I was like, bhmuuuggghhh? And then half my good heart was, like, gone. It's a shame too, cause it was a really nice heart. Bummer. Oh, and my name is Eric Cartman, and I'm a student. www.apple.com/Have_A_Heart/Switch/
Forget the pigs, what I'm waiting for that mammoth to be cloned. I may need a backpack to carry around my heart, but by God they made 'em good back in the old days.
"Hey brother Christian with your high and mighty errand / your actions speak so loud I can't hear a word you're saying"
I can get a brain transplant from one of these pigs to use it as my math co-processor!
Then...I'll have 3 brains!
Anybody who watches Frontline on PBS has already seen a lengthy and incredibly in-depth story about the future of xenotransplantation.
The scary part about pig-to-human transplants is the possibility of humans contracting pig viruses through xenotransplants that could mutate and cause widespread disease. Transplant patients have to take medications that suppress their immune systems so their bodies won't reject their new organs. Thus, the possibility of cross-species disease propagation is very real and very scary.
Pigs being bred for transplantation are currently birthed by caesarian section directly into a bath of iodine and kept in a sterile environment from then on. But even so, it's unlikely that such animals are 100% free of pathogens. Anyone who receives a pig organ should understand that they will be considered as much of a disease threat as if they were HIV-positive for the rest of their lives. They are not to have unprotected sex and should not have children.
It's scary stuff and not to be taken lightly.
A lot of people who would be getting these transplants are likely past child bearing age anyway, and would not have an exponential effect on population growth. And since they probably already reproduced, they don't have any evolutionary effect either.
Exactly! If anything technology has helped us to delay overpopulation. Just think how many more people we would have if it wasn't for the invention of the birth control pill.
I'm pretty skeptical of this one myself. One sugar isn't all that's going to trigger an immune reaction to cause graft rejection. The MHC molecules are perhaps the biggest known issue, given that the pig has very different MHC molecules than a human. Hell, even different humans have different MHC molecules, which is why kidney donors should be related to the receiver.
While sugars do play a role in cell recognition, it's not nearly so important in graft rejection because graft rejection is mediated by the immune system, which focuses more on protein-protein interactions. Knocking out a sugar might help with graft rejection (this seems dubious to me) but seriously... don't you think that a pig should be producing plenty of other molecules with slightly different epitopes to be recognized by human antibodies?
At the most, I'd imagine that this would delay acute graft rejection in a very well done transplant. But I still think immunosuppression, very likely over the remainder of the patient's life, would be necessary.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
The whole point is that the products of a non-kosher animal must not enter your body. This obviously includes eating, but also applies to transplants.
If I had a heart transplant from a pig, would I qualify as a non-kosher animal?
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
the possibility of cross-species disease propagation is very real and very scary.
Why? We've been living with and eating these creatures for millenia. (We've probably been having sex with them for the same time, sick as the concept may be.) Many farmers have probably got pigs blood in open wounds - they tend not to be squeamish when killing animals. If there's a disease that pigs carry that humans haven't already developed at least partial immunity to, then it is extraordinarily hard to catch.
They are not to have unprotected sex and should not have children.
Um, why? Why do we think that those will be the primary means of transmission? If a new disease does come out of the woodwork, it seems that any mode of transmission may be used.
if someone wants to die rather than receive medical aid, then..well, that's their perogative.
Keep in mind, though, those ancient laws were to -protect- their adherants, since suitable technology for safely perserving the meats had not been invented. Basic memetics. Can't pass on the ideas if all your followers are dead. If you trace back the relegious percicution of homosexuality, you find its the same sort of thing, tight reproductive rules had to be formed to keep the dwindling population alive in the face of persecution.
The ultimate irony is that those rules now cause the descendents of those same people to persecute others.
But I digress. If the codes of ethics can't adapt to future circumstances, the memeplex dies as surely as a maladapted organism dies in the environment. Human innovation is accellerating beyond the knee of the exponential curve, its going to be a rough transition, and those of us who know how to bend rather than break will be the ones left.
I can understand the medical benefits of taking organs from pigs and putting them into people... but if we keep doing this... won't we eventually run out of politicians and CEOs?
.. a real life Police Chief Wiggum!
Live web cams
How is this any different than what is currently happening?
How is this any different than a current human disease mutating to become more virulent? Or perhaps simply virulent? HIV didn't spring from SIV because of some transplant, it happened in the wild. The Hong Kong strain of influenza that caused such a scare didn't happen because of human meddling, it happened in the wild.
These things happen in nature, and are rare there, even when all these pathogens have the opportunity to do things like coinfect cells, swap genes, and mutate like crazy. What makes you think that it's so likely as to happen simply due to a transplant?
The problem, as you mention, is immunosuppression, which prevents the body from fighting off any infection that could get in to their transplant. The point of research like this (if it even works, that remains to be seen) is that you don't have to fully immunosuppress, if at all. I'm confident that one day short term immunosuppression will be enough for most transplants, and these people will be able to live normal, healthy lives. Then the chance of this happening drops even further, to the point where all the scaremongering over mutation becomes pointless. Mutations happen, you can't stop them, but that doesn't mean they're really more likely or more dangerous due to science.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"Who knows, we may make that mark on your driver's license obsolete after all."
I thought it was pigs that would be doing the... Oh.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
To me, the most surprising part of the CIA report was this: In Florida, reknown for its elderly population, 18.5% of the population is over the age of 65. Italy as a whole will reach this same 18.5% in 2003, joined by Japan in 2005, and Germany in 2006. France follows in 2016, and the US as a whole reaches 18.5% in 2023. I assume a big reason for the US staying younger for longer will be immigration. I wonder when "white" people will no longer be more than 50% of the US.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Ahem.
BRING ON THE LUDDITES!
Thank you. That is all.
It's been a long time.
... my girlfriend will be somewhat correct when she calls me a pig.
Intercarve Networks, LLC
Think about it.
-- My Weblog.
Anyone remember John Goodman's character in The Big Lebowski?
"Saturday, Donny, is shabbas, the Jewish day of rest. That means I don't work, I don't drive a car, I don't fucking ride in a car, I don't handle money, I don't turn on the oven, and I sure as shit don't fucking roll!"
So this could be up in the air for all we know.
Just what we need is another vector for animal diseases to pass over into humans.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
This is an awful idea. Other posters have pointed out how this makes it far easier for viral and bacterial diseases to leap across the species barrier, but there's a good story about it that they may not know.
In The Coming Plague , Laurie Garrett recounts how the primate supply facility that supplied the baboon whose heart was transplanted into Baby Fae was horrified when they learned what was done with it. They had not known that the ape was to be used as a transplant donor, and would have refused had they know. Seems the ape in question was infected with cytomegalovirus, simian AIDS, and a variety of other diseases that generally don't infect humans, but might if you take the organ out of the ape and stick it in a person.
Later, she tells of a virus carried by a certain species of monkey. It's harmless to that monkey, but readily infects another species which shares habitat with the first. Upon infection, it causes a variety of leukemias and lymphomas so widespread and virulent that death frequently occurs in mere weeks.
And it's airborne.
Man, I'm not sure if any pigs carry anything even near so nasty, but I can't think of a worse thing to be doing. Research money spent for this purpose would be far, far better spent on learning how to grow fresh, healthy, transplantable human organs.
Where I work, this would not be considered by any of us a trans-species transplant if it were for our boss.
pigs and other animals are already the sources for many of our horrible diseases. We already got most of them from living so close to them.
What?
Too slow -- you'd need the clone to develop at least to an adult stage, so that the organs are of a reasonable size for you, and unless it was done VERY early for you you'd be dead by then of whatever necessitated the transplant. Unless there's a way of massively stimulating growth of a human... and that's if you can get past the ethical and legal complications of the fact that you'd be committing premeditated murder.
It'd be much better, for both practical and ethical grounds, to be able to generate a single organ within some kind of nutrient bath.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Bottle-conditioned beer (most homebrew and some microbrews/imports...Sierra Nevada and Chimay come to mind as commercial examples) even contains some vitamins, from the yeast that's used to carbonate the beer. If you happen to drink too much of the stuff, it's also not supposed to leave you with as bad a hangover. (I wouldn't know, as I don't drink to get wasted.) It's like getting some Marmite or Vegemite with your brew. :-)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Another topic to file under "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." First, I wouldn't use a religious argument against it's use, because it mainly applies to their consumption and the infested environments pigs live in regularly. I figure pigs marked for "harvesting" would have grow up in a relatively sterile environment. The cross species disease thing is a worry, however. Whee, you can transplant ape hearts. I guess. And pig valves. Yay. But the entire process reminds me of lazer eye surgery to some extent and it shakey beginnings. Sure, you were promised 20/20, but more often than not one wasn't told of the very risky side effects that could result. Never heard much about those, at least not as much as you probably should have. Piggly trnasplant endorcements remind me of this very issue...
"We can rebuild him. Stronger. Faster. And he'll taste like a BLT, too!"
You need a FREE iPod Nano
You are talking about Porcine Endogenous Retro Virus (PERV).
4 /5 /1042
The answer is that we have actually been using pigs for Xenotransplantation for a very long time: my Grandfather had a pig-valve in his heart, and Jim Finn has fetal pig brain cells in his brain, along with 12 other people, which has (effectively) halted his parkinsons disease, and reversed most of the symptoms (he can work on his car himself now, when before he was reduced from crawling from room to room on his elbows).
Both of these surgeries are vintage 1980's/1990's, and many heart-vavle operations predate that time period, since we did not have mechanical replacements designed until more recently.
The Russians have also been using pig liver cells to treat incurable, and otherwise fatal hepatitus and liver cancer cases, successfully.
In all cases, the protocols require that the person remain sexually inactive in order to avoid the risk of transmitting PERV human-to-human.
However, all testing for the past two decades has indicated that PERV is not transmissable to humans from transplanted tissue: out of the many hundreds of porcine xenotransplant recipients, not a single one tests positive for PERV anywhere but the transplanted porcine cells themselves.
If you are up for a lot of reading, Jim Finn's story (in short form) with a lot of links is available at:
http://tv.carlton.com/organfarm/jim.jhtml
See also Jim's own online journal:
http://www.geocities.com/jimcfinn/index.html
Here is the medical writeup of Jim and the 12 other patients in the journal "Neurology":
http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/5
-- Terry
Exactly! If anything technology has helped us to delay overpopulation. Just think how many more people we would have if it wasn't for the invention of the birth control pill.
And don't forget how the Internet delays overpopulation.. I mean, how many of us Slashdot readers will actually reproduce?!
But again, religions are not particularly noted for evolving...
Anybody want a peanut?
Sorry, I was talking about the discussion threads here, not the article itself. However, the article was far too short and superfluous to truly address the ethical and epidemiological repercussions.
I'll take a clone of myself, headless, with some gene corrections (eyesight), created when I hit about 20 years old. By the time I'm 40 I'll have somewhat fresh 20 year old parts to choose from.
Maybe in a few hundred years there'll be Soylent Green style warehouses with tons of headless clones, ready to be harvested. Creepy isn't it?
Reminds me of a story I just read on my palm, an older story by H.G. Wells. You can download it free at memoware for free.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
Yeah just like cow pox. Oh wait... cow pox was the first ever vaccination (vacca is the latin word for cow) and because of it smallpox only exists in 2 places in the world (frozen in Atlanta and in Moscow). We've been around animals like pigs and cows for so long that the risk of getting a new disease from them is very slim. The risk of a patient rejecting the organ is a major concern however. But I guess if you need a new heart you may be willing to take that chance.
ok
why cant they just say transgenic pigs ?
(or arn't the slashdot crowd able to understand technical terms)
if you really wanted to go after this and you had money (like a drug company) then you would use Bonobo's because they are much closer to humans and the the organs are the right size (the primary reason to use pigs is that the organs are the right size )
whatever your postion on this dont think its not going to happen it is
(drug companys have to much to gain)
lets keep it in the open and monitor it rather than banning it and leting the drug companies move to a nation which will turn a blind eye and selling it on there (to have the op you fly to chad and pay your money then fly back to the country which banned it)
basically the Biological people screwed themselves by allowing patents on genetic sequences and had to get a non profit group do the human genome so that could not be patented lets not allow that to happen in software
regards
John Jones
A free honey-glazed ham with every heart transplant!
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
I'm sure the brief lives of these pigs will be a lot more pleasant than the animals we raise to be eaten.
If by "more pleasant" you mean they'll have less time to be miserable, you might be right. If you think transplant pigs are going to be put up in cushy hotel rooms with free HBO, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. I expect they'll have healthier diets than food pigs though, to keep the heart as healthy as possible.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Yep, it's part of the wonderful circle of life (cue Mr. Hankey and Cornwallis singing "Circle of Poo"). The little yeasties turn sugar into alcohol, and synthesize vitamin B. When your body tries to break down the alcohol, it depletes vitamin B reserves. Having the yeast in the beer helps you out a bit by giving you back some extra B.
It won't do the whole trick though, because the majority of fermentation takes place before bottling, and the yeast from the bottom of the fermentation tank are typically discarded. Also, a hangover is primarily due to dehydration, so drink plenty of water while you're getting drunk and it won't be nearly as bad.
Worst-case scenario, you wake up massively hungover - take aspirin, Gatorade, and a teaspoonful of brewer's yeast (you could scavenge this off the bottom of the aforementioned fermentation tank if you're a homebrewer, otherwise buy it at the grocery store).
Oh, and to avoid being completely off topic, a bacon and egg biscuit from the greasiest fast food place you can find.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
My suggestion would be Horses, since they are not haram/non-kosher in any religion. Or dogs.
The reason pigs are being used is because their anatomy is very similar to human anatomy. This is also why high school biology classes dissect fetal pigs (at least, mine did, that may not be common any more). Horses and dogs probably wouldn't work - in particular, dog parts seem likely to be too small.
If there were another animal equally appropriate for the task and kosher as well, don't you think it would have been chosen instead?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
That's an interesting point - as far as I know, the religious prohibitions specify EATING "non-Kosher" critters as bad. Wonder how they'll come down on "non-foodular" uses of the critters...
Though given that I occasionally hear them referred to as "unclean" in this context, I suppose it's unlikely that organ transplants will be treated any better than food...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Good eye, I wanted to fix it after I posted it. Ack.
creepy? no. Hopefull, yes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Here are some Russian porcine xenotransplantation references; this is not a complete set of references, so you will have to do some searching on your own:
i /961547.ht m
,K Kojima, Y Karasawa, T Kohsaki, Y Iida, M Makuuchi (Japan) 130
r ga nfarm/
Islets of langerhan (treatment of type I diabetes):
http://www.islet.org/41.htm
Liver xenotransplants (company involved in study):
http://www.novartis.com/
Bioartificial Liver in vivo (Dutch):
http://www.cordis.lu/tmr/src/grants/fmb
Suggested search terms:
russia liver xenotransplant
dutch porcine hepatocytes
russia porcine hepatocytes
Tiny bibliography:
Reversal of acute liver failure by xenografts of microencapsulated porcine hepatocytes Z Du, T Li, GM Shu, JC Song, AM Sun (Canada) 122
Experimental studies on hepatic support device using heterogeneous alive animal to substitute failed liver N Cui, N Cui, J Wang, Q Fu, H Cui, J Feng (China) 128
Development of xenogeneic direct hemoperfusion method for bioartificial liver K Naruse, Y Sakai, D Endoh, J Shindoh
Postoperative liver failure successfully treated by hepatic arterial infusion of prostaglandin E1 (PGE1) and aperesis therapy Y Asanuma, T Sato, O Yasui, T Kurokawa, K Koyama (Japan) 120
Precrinical Study of a Hybrid Artificial Liver Support System J Fukuda, K Okamura, R Sakiyama, K Nakazawa, H Ijima, Y Yamashita, M Shimada, K Shirabe, S Tanaka, E Tsujita, K Sugimachi, K Funatsu (Japan) 123
Development of a hybrid bioartificial liver using hepatocytes entrapped in a basement membrane matrix M Nagaki, K Miki, Yl Kim, T Naiki, A Sugiyama, H Moriwaki (Japan) 127
See also:
Frontline: Organ Farm, part 2
Program #1913
Original Airdate: April 3, 2001
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/o
"Although organ transplants cannot be performed in the U.S., two people have had their lives saved by organs from a humanized transgenic pig. Both were treated at the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. The first was 20-year-old Rob Pennington. He was an emergency admission for liver failure in the autumn of 1997, just weeks before such experiments were halted by the FDA."
If this is *specifically* for liver cancer, see also:
http://www.mad-cow.org/UKGMO/GMO_news14.html
19 Jun 00 - GMO - Tests on GM 'missiles' to target cancer cells
Suggested search terms:
"David Kerr" liver cancer
Clinical trials only, at this point; so far 200 patients have been treated in the UK using a genetically modified retrovirus. This is probably a better bet at this point than a xenotransplant, for this *specific* problem.
-- Terry
actual, when it come down to life and death, most of those rules can be set aside.
however, I get this from my Jewish froms and IANAR(I am not a rabii).
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I don't want to seem unsympathetic to you and your family. Your grandmother is experiencing a terribly reduced quality of life? You suspect she is being kept alive against her will? That is truly awful.
But humans made the decision to keep her alive. I believe it is a mistake to blame science for this. Her children and other relatives should not be feeling like helpless victims here. Her doctors are not modern shaman, whose suggestions you have to take. If they act that way, if they are playing god, you, her relatives, should challenge them, and keep challenging them.
We face the same kind of decisions, around xeno-transplants, as a society, as your family faces with your grandmother. If we believe in democracy, it is time to be really diligent about keeping our selves informed. And we have to be prepared to explore our values, and what we believe in, and speak up once we have figured it out.
Right, that's what i'm talking about. I wasn't commenting on any religion as a whole, merely the relegious views being espoused by the person i was replying to.
Anyhow, yeah, read your post, sounds pretty sensible to me.