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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

#351

Post by chii »

alex_sf wrote: post #348
chii wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both food, or medical, is a use of a resource that is created by and for humans. The pig wouldn't have been born had their purpose for food, or medical use, not been there. it's not like humans are capturing wild pigs and using them. I would say that wild animals deserves the right to exist and not hunted (unless they're threatening human interests), but the same cannot be said for bred animals.

I don't see any distinction at all. Can you elaborate? (I'm an omnivore that's relatively OK with animal testing, fwiw)

The distinction between wild animals and reared ones is that they existed independently of humans, where as animals reared by humans would not have existed otherwise.

I hold the same distinction to fishing - i do not like wild fish, but farmed fishes (note: farmed, not fishes caught from the wild, then fattened) are ok (esp. in an enclosed, hydroponic system). Unfortunately, most "farmed" fishes refer to caught fish that is fattened...

Anything that humans create, live or dead, is fair game to be used for any purpose deemed desirable by the creator. The right to live doesn't exist for those organisms. But wild animals that exist without any human intervention should have that right to live.

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

#352

Post by pabs3 »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #261
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."

There are important advantages to pigs over non-human primates. Originally, research was centered around non-human primates (NHPs). But it didn't work out all. Sure, they're a bit closer to us genetically, but we still reject their tissues, so we would need to genetically engineer them. Humans are also much bigger than the non-human primates we can grow in the lab with ease and that have a fast enough reproductive cy…

There is a pretty funny yet horrifying novel about NHPs for xenotransplants. It didn't cover the disease aspect though.

https://farragobooks.com/book/the-organ-grinders/

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

#353

Post by deltaonefour »

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.

It's not weird at all. Biologically speaking, we are designed to eat meat. Our bodies produce all of the enzymes, such as protease and lipase, necessary for the breakdown and absorption of meat.

The weird thing is how we developed sympathy and concern for such things. Human civilizations' current abundance of resources allows us the luxury to develop moral "philosophies" and become "vegetarians" effectively masking our more savage nature.

Make no mistake, You are biologically designed to kill and eat flesh. And if you can kill it and eat it, of course you can experiment on it.

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

#354

Post by MikeTheGreat »

xwdv wrote: post #289
Ensorceled wrote: post #47

Reminder: We've been replacing human heart VALVES with pig valves for a long time now. My grandmother lived for almost a decade after her replacement. https://www.heart-valve-surgery.com/learning/pig-valve-repla...

You can live indefinitely with animal valves though they may need to be replaced every 15 years or so. It’a a fairly straightforward minimally invasive procedure though.

Wait, what?

Are you saying that replacing a valve in your heart is "a fairly straightforward minimally invasive procedure"?

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

#355

Post by lostlogin »

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."

> Some labs use dogs. I just can't do that."

A dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.

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

#356

Post by sailfast »

mise_en_place wrote: post #350
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.

I don’t think it’s weird at all. If a million people were to die of COVID tomorrow, I wouldn’t really care emotionally. They all had their own life narratives, emotions and intelligence. Yet it wouldn’t phase me one bit. Perhaps intellectually I would have some compassion for them, and would hope they didn’t suffer. On the other hand, if a close relative or friend dies, I would mourn them immensely. Similarly, if I h…

A MILLION people? Not one bit? "Perhaps intellectually I would have some compassion for them?"

I guess you're proving Stalin (paraphrasing Tucholsky?[0]) was right? "The death of one is a tragedy, but the death of millions, a statistic.

[0]https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0603/Political-m...

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

#357

Post by lostlogin »

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.

> Is this so much worse than killing pig and salivating its meat and devouring it?

Couldn’t we do both?

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

#358

Post by bckr »

lostlogin wrote: post #355
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."

> Some labs use dogs. I just can't do that." A dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.

Is this a quote from something? Because I'm certain pigs have personality. I'm even somewhat confident they have as much personality as dogs.

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

#359

Post by MikeTheGreat »

sokoloff wrote: post #193
OminousWeapons wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) for example will cost ~50K I believe? It will be covered by insurance if it is necessary. There are also less invasive forms of valve replacement (transcatheter / percutaneous) which involve collapsing a synthetic valve around a balloon at the end of a catheter, inserting the assembly into a femoral artery, guiding the valve into the heart and into the open damaged valve, an…

Is anyone having an aortic valve replacement that isn’t necessary?!

Er, no, although that was a funny way for the parent to phrase it.

It might be more accurate to phrase it as "depending on your insurance, your insurance may pay for it if it's covered AND you _meet_the_criteria_ for the procedure."

For example: You may run into a situation where your doctor says "You know, it would be good to replace this now" and the insurance company says "Thank you for your professional opinion; our table says that we're not replacing it until criteria X is also satisfied"

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

#360

Post by tcgv »

dexwiz wrote: post #342
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.

From what I heard, the pig lived a relativity good life. It was well cared for by the large animal veterinary school on campus. Had more space and better food than any factory raised pig. All experiments passed an ethics review. The pig was anesthetized before any procedure. The number of experiments may sound barbaric on the surface, but it was to reduce the overall number of pigs used in trials. Modern medicine wou…

Thanks for your clarification. It's good to read that the pig was well cared and experiments passed ethics reviews. To be fair your original comment was lacking this information, hence when I first read it felt (unintentionally as we can see now) a bit cold-hearted to me as well.
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