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In France, a Second Patient Receives Permanent Artificial Heart

Jason Koebler (3528235) writes One of the most important goals of transhumanist medicine—possessing a perfectly healthy heart—has so far remained elusive. This week, we came a step closer when for the second time ever, a French company implanted a permanent artificial heart in a patient. More than just pumping blood, future artificial hearts will bring numerous other advantages with them. They will have computer chips and wi-fi capacity built into them. We'll control our hearts with our smart phones, tuning down its pumping capacity when we want to sleep, or tuning it up when we want to run marathons. The patient who received the first of these hearts, though he survived for 76 days, died after the heart "stopped after a short circuit, although the exact reasons behind the death were still unknown."

15 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Wifi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    With wifi/bluetooth capability I feel like there's not anything that could possibly go wrong. It will be important to have it connect to the cloud in order to retrieve heart rate profiles for the day.

    1. Re:Wifi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You may skip this ad and restart your heart in 5s.

    2. Re:Wifi by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hackers will always be pinging it to see if it is vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug...

      --
      This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  2. When it fails by dunkindave · · Score: 4, Funny

    If the artificial heart stops, would that count as a "Blue Face of Death"?

  3. Re:I really don't my vital body parts to be on wif by X0563511 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't have any problems if it was broadcasting data, but if it's a 2-way communication (at layer 1) then they can fuck right off.

    If you want to communicate, plug something in (or use near-field etc)

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  4. WIFI-Enabled Vital Organs?!?! by deathcloset · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I strongly believe that in the not too distant future the number 1 thing that people will wonder why we were so dumb as to not notice it was a horrible idea was having every goddamn thing connected and communicating.

    ROM people. ROM!!! (the second ROM was written in allcaps for emphasis)

    You can't remotely exploit a device without a network or public interface.

    We're so obsessed with connectivity and networks these days that we are blinded to the negatives of all this connectivity - thinking they are just problems of the system to be resolved rather than inherent aspects of the system which can not be gotten rid of.

    Alrighty rant(off);
    v Now since, like you, I love the internet and connected thingymabobs somebody please reply and give some really good counterarguments against my thinking that IP addresses+Organs is a bad idea.

    1. Re:WIFI-Enabled Vital Organs?!?! by jpvlsmv · · Score: 4, Funny

      If the implanted device is running an IPv6-only stack, nobody will be able to talk to it for years and years. I don't expect to see broad rollout of pure IPv6 in my lifetime.

    2. Re:WIFI-Enabled Vital Organs?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Sphincter has posted on your wall!

      Sorry about that, bro. I swear I thought it was just a fart. Still friends?

      Liver has changed its relationship status to: It's complicated.

      Pancreas has posted on your wall!

      I swear all my boss does is sit around eating Pixie Stix and drinking Mt Dew to make my life miserable

      Left Teste has posted on your wall!

      So are we going to the club tonight or not?

      Right Teste likes this!

      Left Ear has posted on your wall!

      EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

  5. This isn't supposed to happen... by Notabadguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the article:

    "French artificial heart maker Carmat says it will not perform another human implant until it has determined the cause of death of the first patient fitted with the device."

    Six months later: Implanting a new heart, despite still not knowing what happened the first time."

    1. Re:This isn't supposed to happen... by qbast · · Score: 5, Funny

      They are trying to reproduce the bug.

    2. Re:This isn't supposed to happen... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That statement sounds like gutless PR posturing: Obviously you want to learn as much as you can from a failure, especially an unexpected one; and make appropriate modifications based on what you find; but there's a reason why people say mean things about sample sizes of 1. It's entirely possible that you won't be able to nail down exactly why things went wrong in a single unit. Given the continued supply of patients who Will Die, Period, without replacement organs that aren't available, it hardly seems worthwhile to stop just because you lack a perfect determination (so long as you do, of course, make whatever improvements/modifications your imperfect determination suggests are needed).

      You aren't going to make progress without experiments, some risky; but you have a population of (adult, of-sound-mind) patients who will definitely die without intervention. You don't want to act in reckless disregard for human life; but when you've got people who will definitely die and the possibility of producing improved treatments, excessive avoidance of uncertainty is disregard for human life. It's a pity that the PR flacks didn't have the guts to say that.

  6. Permanant vs temporary by belthize · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Permanence has a pretty specific meaning here. It says nothing of duration, only that it's the last.

    Getting a permanent heart that lasts 76 days is not nearly as enticing as getting a temporary heart that lasts 2 years.

  7. remember : always mount a scratch monkey by Thud457 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  8. Re:I really don't my vital body parts to be on wif by X0563511 · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Near Field" is a very specific thing. Whatever you're thinking of there, certainly isn't what I'm talking about - the near field of 2.4ghz would be around 1/10 of a meter away and no further.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  9. Re:A working heart is not much by Alef · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So what is your point, really? Abandon all health care?

    You do realise that there are a lot of people with excellent cognitive abilities dying of heart failure every day, and that many could have lived decades of high quality life had their hearts been healthy, right?