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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

#311

Post by kortex »

pacomerh wrote: post #303
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.

my thoughts exactly, these animals are even smarter than dogs and according to some studies smarter than 3-year old children, which makes this even sadder. We have one as a pet in the family and they're so chill.

Sorry, "pigs are smarter than dogs" is gonna need a Citation Needed. I don't doubt some pigs are smarter than some dogs, and maybe they are comparable on average, but I'd put money on any of the working breed dogs over pigs.

("smarter" being general intelligence, reasoning, working memory, and inference. There might be some specific tasks pigs excel at, but that is different than measuring "smarts")

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

#312

Post by theonething »

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 assume you're vegan then.

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

#313

Post by jessriedel »

FinanceAnon wrote: post #153
bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to soft flexible machinery being somewhat difficult to manufacture, you would also have to hook it up to the brain. Not exactly an easy feat.

Why would you need to hook it up to the brain? I am assuming to respond to signals, for example stressed -> beat faster? But what would happen if you didn't have this automatic response? Let's say the heartbeat could be controlled by an algorithm or an app - for example if you lie down, it slows down automatically or if you expect to do some exercise, you can turn it up.

You don't need to hook it up the brain. Transplanted hearts are generally not innervated.

https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/39/20/1799/290050...

As a result, they do not correctly respond to higher demand by beating faster, but this is a deficiency that is considered acceptable. Heart transplant recipients aren't routinely running marathons.

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

#314

Post by spiralx »

JimDabell wrote: post #281
mizzao wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was actually an inaccurate portrayal of Jewish law and Orthodox Jews "condemned the episode": https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ask-the-expert-kosh...

I was once stuck in line in a Subway behind two Muslim men having an argument. One of them was insisting that he couldn’t have turkey ham because eating ham was against his faith, and the other one was trying to explain that ham was forbidden because it was pork and that turkey ham was fine because it wasn’t pork. His mate just kept repeating “it’s still ham though, innit?” There were halal signs up, that wasn’t the…

Your comment gave me flashbacks to Chris Morris's satire Four Lions :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Lions

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

#315

Post by JetAlone »

mlyle wrote: post #308
JetAlone wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how we define "abomination" comes down to what we're used to. If a person believes scripture is only a cultural document and not divine revelation then that would be the definition of abomination. I have to personally disagree with that assessment. >Is taking a cheap statin that will improve your length of life subverting God's will? It could be, depending on what it means in the bigger picture. I believe we know ve…

> > how we define "abomination" comes down to what we're used to. > If a person believes scripture is only a cultural document and not divine revelation then that would be the definition of abomination. I have to personally disagree with that assessment. That's not what I claimed. But to claim something is "abomination" based on your own personal recoil from it isn't very useful as a moral framework. > and accepting…

>But to claim something is "abomination" based on your own personal recoil from it isn't very useful as a moral framework.

I said that something could possibly be an abomination, that being a human being with pig guts installed in place of their human guts. Is that my own personal recoil? I don't know 100% it seems to me that there's room to discuss how a "chimeric" transplant could symbolically be that. My entire purpose for mentioning it as such was ultimately to point to how a non materialist viewpoint _could_ point away from taking the operation even where strict religious dietary laws are not at play.

>What's the "due time", though?

Determined on a very personal level, not something I can prescribe here and now. I've done my best in these comments to point to the sort of meanings that may help me decide that for myself, but the responders don't seem to be terribly pleased with them.

>What you seem to be saying is that it comes down to some mix between a reflexive judgment and cold utilitarianism.

No, those are just some of the tools I have, the ones accessible to me right now.

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

#316

Post by theplumber »

JCharante wrote: post #295
theplumber wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find such a remark weird given that "you" are serving such "helpless" creatures at your favorite restaurant. I think it's the ultimate hypocrisy. Not to mention that we have a situation where helpless creatures are sacrificed for the science/common good of human beings and the other situation where they are murdered for the taste of their meat & bones.

Well I'm vegan and I find it disheartening how they can talk about a Pig like they can talk about a cement brick.

I'm pretty sure you've enjoyed meat before going vegan. Now you enjoy lecturing others.

As far as the language used is concerned humans get the same "cement brick" treatment in scientific papers. How would it help using a compassionate language? It would be just a distraction from the subject.

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

#317

Post by foerbert »

sytelus wrote: post #305
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, except we are not talking about two people. We are talking about killing a pig to save a human, potentially thousands of humans.

Is this so much worse than killing pig and salivating its meat and devouring it? Think about it, you are killing a living animal for your one meal when you had all the options in the world. Many people are not even eating it fully and simpply just tossing it away literally in a trash. As usual, I am sure a lot of people will run to Bible to justify this.

I mean, plenty of people also have a problem with that. I'm not sure a discussion on the ethics of a thing should end just because a similar thing is more widespread.

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

#319

Post by loeg »

JCharante wrote: post #298
frozenport wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see them as intelligent

Is intelligence really a good reason to discriminate though? Isn't that what *ists used to say about other groups of people? Do we experiment on people with learning disorders? (Well I think they used to but they stopped)

By that line of reasoning, you shouldn't eat plants, either.

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

#320

Post by the_arun »

dexwiz wrote: post #61
tricky wrote: post #26

You might be asking, why a pig? I don't know, but forever ago I wrote software for a cardiovascular imaging lab and pigs were their primary test subjects. I was like, "why pigs?" and the PI was like, "Imaging-wise, pig hearts aren't too different from humans. Plus, we can give them a heart attack in the scanner and not go to jail. Some labs use dogs. I just can't do that."

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…

I wonder how long will it extend the life of a human after transplanted with Pig's heart. 5 years? Then I guess after every x years, they need new transplant? Though better than death, it is a painful stress.
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