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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

#451

Post by wruza »

theplumber wrote: post #323
JetAlone wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come now, do you think the gut flora that naturally interacts with my body, etc. and lives and dies (death being explainable as a consequence of the fall anyways) is on the same order of meaning to me as the changes enacted by God-image bearing man? It's not comparable to me. The change brought about in my faith is a divine change given by the Divine Persons from outside this temporal universe who love me! Yes! A sal…

My advice stands: The key(word )that you're looking for is "delusional". Find its meaning and it will set you free the way the creator intended.

Can we please not have discussions like this here. I'm just a regular user, but I think most of us will agree. It may have a first-hand educational effect sometimes, but it rarely stays positive.

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

#452

Post by bayesian_horse »

freetinker wrote: post #429
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.

Let’s just first take care of our own, shall we? Band together as humans caring for humans, and then perhaps the pigs?

If pigs are already entrusted to your care, you can't put caring for them off.

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

#453

Post by jakear »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #449
jakear wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit off topic but you seem level-headed and I've been wondering about this for a while: what's your vegan "endgame"? The way I see it, the "vegan utopia" would get rid of all small family farms (even strictly milk/egg ones) -- where animals are given all the food they need, have access to good medical care, are sheltered from predators, and are able to reproduce and nurse offspring -- and replace all that with... a…

> The way I see it, the "vegan utopia" would get rid of all small family farms (even strictly milk/egg ones) -- where animals are given all the food they need, have access to good medical care, are sheltered from predators, and are able to reproduce and nurse offspring This is, like, the most charitable interpretation possible of the current state of farming for meat.

Certainly large scale factory farms should be avoided at all costs. But animal husbandry is an ancient art that a good number of small family farms still practice. They're the ones I'm referring to here. Also note I'm specifically referring to egg/dairy production as opposed to meat production.

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

#454

Post by bayesian_horse »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #381
tptacek wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends! One of my kids is a biochemist wrapping up his degree this semester in a vet-med lab (send job opportunities!). He's done one study with pigs, where they were developing new enteric vaccines. At the conclusion of the study there's nothing wrong with the pigs --- they're just hyper-vaccinated --- but without a place to send them, all they can do is euthanize. He spent a week or two trying to re-home the pi…

Dave Arnold tried to take euthanized research pigs to cook, back when he worked in, iirc, Dr. Oz's lab. No dice.

Well, if they were "euthanized" with narcotics, there are good reasons not to eat them... Or even to give them out to the public for drug addicts to get at.

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

#455

Post by hulitu »

goldenkey wrote: post #324
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.

We are talking about torturing a pig, killing is really no big deal -- everything dies but not everything suffers.

I think a pig being killed would dissagree.

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

#456

Post by fastball »

zizee wrote: post #408
dexwiz wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure, perhaps it can be justified by the greater good, but that should not preclude feeling sorry for the animal in question.

Who said you're not allowed to feel sorry for it?

I feel like OP is being strawmanned. It's not like dexwiz said "fuck pigs test em more".

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

#457

Post by fastball »

graderjs wrote: post #425
scoopertrooper wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can accept humans can eat helpless intelligent creatures, then the fact we perform ethics-reviewed anesthetised procedures and later dissect the same animals really shouldn't keep you up at night.

Quoted post unavailable.

No post body was provided.

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

#458

Post by [deleted] »

emersonrsantos wrote: post #349
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."

I don't get it that dogs/cats/horses/etc are sentient but pigs/cows/chicken and other animals are not.

[deleted]

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

#459

Post by bayesian_horse »

tptacek wrote: post #265
cwkoss wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are pigs used in biomedical testing ever butchered for their meat? Seems like we kill a lot of pigs every year anyways. Would be neat if we could get multiple birds from one stone - for experiments where there isn't a risk of making the meat dangerous at least.

It depends! One of my kids is a biochemist wrapping up his degree this semester in a vet-med lab (send job opportunities!). He's done one study with pigs, where they were developing new enteric vaccines. At the conclusion of the study there's nothing wrong with the pigs --- they're just hyper-vaccinated --- but without a place to send them, all they can do is euthanize. He spent a week or two trying to re-home the pi…

It's not particularly difficult. The method depends on jurisdiction and what is going to be done with the remains. If you need those for further testing, for example.

Without looking it up, I would guess the go-to method usually would be anesthesia followed by an overdose of narcotics or a special euthanasia agent. It's just that a "Mini pig" of 70kg or more will require higher volumes of all of that compared to to a mouse or even a beagle. Of course, when using pharmaceuticals you can't use the meat.

In the EU it is also very dependent on what kind of medications the pigs received during the testing. Only if all of those have been explicitly allowed for meat production can the meat be used at all. Here in Germany the researchers would include the "what do I do afterwards with them" in the planning. So in some cases, like for experiments on feeding or maybe vaccines (if no infections are attempted) then they may actually plan to bring them into the food chain.

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

#460

Post by bayesian_horse »

cwkoss wrote: post #335
tptacek wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends! One of my kids is a biochemist wrapping up his degree this semester in a vet-med lab (send job opportunities!). He's done one study with pigs, where they were developing new enteric vaccines. At the conclusion of the study there's nothing wrong with the pigs --- they're just hyper-vaccinated --- but without a place to send them, all they can do is euthanize. He spent a week or two trying to re-home the pi…

> But the circumstances attending euthanizing research pigs are tricky; the pigs are all in a common area, and they're social animals and know something's up when you put one of them down. Interesting. I wonder if people have experimented with more humane slaughtering practices like giving the pigs a bunch of booze/opiates so they can have a big pig party, then slaughtering once they've had their fun and passed out.…

The easier solution would be to euthanize them one by one in a separate room.
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