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U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

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Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#251

Post by JetAlone »

derekp7 wrote: post #244
JetAlone wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd want to question why I'm doing it. For example do I have kids I need to stick around to support? Or am I just going to be discharged to mostly play video games, alone? Because I don't see a need to extend that life. Then I'd want to think about what it symbolizes. Is it really so irrational to just let my body die when my God-given guts fail instead of depending on the hands of man to possibly convert my body int…

Do you feel the same way about other life saving technologies such as seat belts and motorcycle helmets? What about hitting the anti lock breaks when a semi pulls out in front of you? The same philosophy can be applied to other life saving / extending measures such as adjustments to diet, or taking high blood pressure medicine.

No. None of those safety implements you describe are things that alter the structure of my body, they are applied to augment the safety of existing pieces of external technology. So if they symbolize something negative, it would have to be along the lines of "constraining worldly authority" which could be argued to be a natural precaution, or an overprotective tyrannical overreach, but the nature of it is not the same as the operation. I do not share this materialist/gnostic mindset which tends to make a person consider matter to be essentially all the same in meaning, with a dead universe acted upon at a libertine perogative through a window of the human mind.

Everything has become for me a layered network of symbolic meaning. The diet is about resisting gluttonous impulses and building up my body via natural means towards an ideal intended by the Creator. High blood pressure medicine may be an enactment of an archetype of a good doctor, or not, depending on how the medicine itself interacts with this network of meanings.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#252

Post by sodez117 »

Sporktacular wrote: post #230
dexwiz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pigs are really common in biomedical testing. They are physically a similar size and weight to humans. They also reach maturity in about 6 months. Much cheaper to raise than primates, and more likely to get approval for testing. My friends in biomed grad school named one of theirs cyber pig because it has about 30 different experiments ran on it before it was killed, and afterwards it was portioned out for further te…

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

Until scarcity is solved everything is a resource.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#253

Post by tired_medicine »

JetAlone wrote: post #228
TravHatesMe wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit of a tangent: I read the article to my wife and she mentioned that there is an episode of Grey's Anatomy where they wanted to perform a transplant of a pig's bowels but the Jewish (or Muslim?) lady refused. Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life.

I'd want to question why I'm doing it. For example do I have kids I need to stick around to support? Or am I just going to be discharged to mostly play video games, alone? Because I don't see a need to extend that life. Then I'd want to think about what it symbolizes. Is it really so irrational to just let my body die when my God-given guts fail instead of depending on the hands of man to possibly convert my body int…

If you developed end-stage renal disease requiring hemodialysis, are you planning on dying, or are you okay with extending your life by ~10 years with dialysis?

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#254

Post by amerkhalid »

mardifoufs wrote: post #214
amerkhalid wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish you were right. We got scolded for using donors’ breast milk for our newborn because donors might have eaten pork. SMH. EDIT: I understand where you are coming from. I follow the most liberal and rational interpretation of Islam. But feel like we are very small minority.

That is very weird. Was it from the family or from an imam? I know breast milk has a few rules around it in islam, but it mostly boils down to sharing breast milk creating a form kinship between the babies sharing the milk. As in, you become in a way sister/brother with the other baby. But I agree that many Muslims have a...lot of folk beliefs and take a lot of mental shortcuts that lead to reductive interpretations…

It was family elders. They are pretty serious about religion, attend Islamic lectures etc. And they were mostly concerned about pork consumption of donors. No one mentioned anything about forming milk kinship.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#255

Post by notyourwork »

Sporktacular wrote: post #230
dexwiz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pigs are really common in biomedical testing. They are physically a similar size and weight to humans. They also reach maturity in about 6 months. Much cheaper to raise than primates, and more likely to get approval for testing. My friends in biomed grad school named one of theirs cyber pig because it has about 30 different experiments ran on it before it was killed, and afterwards it was portioned out for further te…

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

What do you propose is the solution?

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#256

Post by perfmode »

sodez117 wrote: post #252
Sporktacular wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

Until scarcity is solved everything is a resource.

this reads like a line out of a dystopic neal stephenson novel

or some or douglas adams quote about a comically primitive species of alien

doesn’t it have that sort of ring to it?

is existence not more than sets of problems and solutions?

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#257

Post by JetAlone »

tired_medicine wrote: post #253
JetAlone wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd want to question why I'm doing it. For example do I have kids I need to stick around to support? Or am I just going to be discharged to mostly play video games, alone? Because I don't see a need to extend that life. Then I'd want to think about what it symbolizes. Is it really so irrational to just let my body die when my God-given guts fail instead of depending on the hands of man to possibly convert my body int…

If you developed end-stage renal disease requiring hemodialysis, are you planning on dying, or are you okay with extending your life by ~10 years with dialysis?

Do I have people who really need me to stick around and support them in some important way? How old/aged am I already? What is my priest advising I do? How much does it cost, can that money do something more meaningful in the lives of others?

I'm not simply anti-medicine for the sake of being anti-medicine. Rather, medicine is itself a powerful tool that needs to fit into the teleology of my worldview. One that I could misuse if I am not considerate of what its use does and why I'm using it.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#258

Post by LeifCarrotson »

cwkoss wrote: post #124
woke_neoliberal wrote: post #35

The pig was modified to remove presentation of immunogenic sugars on the cell surface. Unfortunately, the recipient needs to be on immunosuppressants the rest of their life. This rekindles discussions back in school about chimeras... in order for the organs to be immunocompatible, the donor needs to be partially human. What % is too human to harvest for organs? I suppose it's still too soon to answer such questions,…

I think the nervous system is really the only part that I'd have ethical concerns about. If they can grow a pig with a 99% human heart, I don't see why that should be more ethically concerning that harvesting a 100% pig heart.

The concern, I think, that it's obviously unethical to grow a 100% human child and then harvest its heart, right? You're talking about a living, feeling, thinking person! Causing them to suffer or to die is morally wrong, conversely, their life and their right to life have precious, incalculable, sacred value. The thought of harvesting, murdering a human being for one of their organs is repulsive, harvesting them for food is cannibalism and a taboo of the highest order.

And yet many humans eat bacon for breakfast without a second thought. On the operating table, the human heart and pig heart would probably be indistinguishable to a layperson, so why is the one sacred and the other free for the taking?

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#259

Post by stevenwoo »

Sporktacular wrote: post #230
dexwiz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pigs are really common in biomedical testing. They are physically a similar size and weight to humans. They also reach maturity in about 6 months. Much cheaper to raise than primates, and more likely to get approval for testing. My friends in biomed grad school named one of theirs cyber pig because it has about 30 different experiments ran on it before it was killed, and afterwards it was portioned out for further te…

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

I know someone who worked with mice but switched fields, he explained he could no longer do it because even though they are heavily inbred for research, each one had a different personality when in his hands and killing all of them took too much of a mental toll after years of work.
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