Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't remember WaPo's article, but the NYT article that I read didn't mention any ethical issues or the recipient's past[1]. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/health/heart-transplant-p...
https://mobile.twitter.com/Jess_Riedel/status/14817962098156... https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/01/13/pig-heart... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/health/pig-heart-transpla...
Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
81–90 of 527 posts
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't remember WaPo's article, but the NYT article that I read didn't mention any ethical issues or the recipient's past[1]. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/health/heart-transplant-p...
https://mobile.twitter.com/Jess_Riedel/status/14817962098156... https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/01/13/pig-heart... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/health/pig-heart-transpla...
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#83I wonder how long it'll last, given the pig it came out of was probably already an adult, and pigs live far shorter lives than humans.
Don't get talk about people "feeling" the person from whom they received the transplant inside them? If so, how would a pig seem?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1773764/
Worth watching with subtitles if you do not understand the language.
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious how you'd extract a human heart from a willing human donor without killing the donor. I'm also curious how you'd similarly prepare the human donor in any way to meaningfully reduce the chances of rejection, like genetic modification.
Am I reading this wrong? Isn't this how you'd do it? > As of 2018, the most common procedure is to take a functioning heart, with or without both lungs, from a recently deceased organ donor (brain death is the standard) and implant it into the patient. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_transplantation
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not familiar with the details of this case, but I can imagine that the time and expertise of physicians capable of doing the surgery is scarce. What do you say to the claim that, “The time and resources including the surgeons and the pig heart should be put to use helping a more deserving person.”
I already said: First time surgery that might not work is an experiment as much as a treatment. Hypothetically dialling the risk level up - just a matter of degree, still - we'd find ourselves regarding this operation as his sacrifice for the greater good.
I don’t think changing the name of what happened from “treatment” to “experiment” tells me anything new. If another person with a roughly identical health status but without the violent history is also willing to accept the pig heart, then the decision must be made to use the scarce resources to treat Ed or the “non-violent” person.
> we'd find ourselves regarding this operation as his sacrifice for the greater good.
I agree that people may be talking about the transplant and Ed differently had he died on the table.
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#86The article says; "Almost 22 years later the first ever xenotransplant has finally taken place." They seem to have forgotten about this baboon-to-human heart transplant from 1984. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Fae
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Neither party can offer a valid argument as to why their principle is true, because both of their principles are normative. The majority of ethicists agree that normative statements can express true statements. But the positive/normative distinction is also not important here: medical ethics is a prescriptive and lexical ethics, one that you must follow if you are to practice medicine. It's not interested in what a…
> The majority of ethicists agree that normative statements can express true statements. What do you think is a good candidate for such a statement? My impression is that arguments must proceed from axioms, positive axioms aren’t helpful because the statement is normative and normative axioms just reproduce the issue. > medical ethics is a prescriptive and lexical ethics, one that you must follow if you are to practi…
Here's an intuitive one: "you shouldn't kick puppies." Most people think that expresses a true statement (not that "most people" is itself indicative of truth value).
In terms of my own ethics: "act only in a way that you can will be universal law." Of course, not everybody agrees with that one, but I think it's an awfully good candidate.
We can talk about if and how those proceed from axioms, but I suspect that'll be a long thread :-)
> What is the meaning of “lexical ethics”?
Sorry: lex is in lex, legis, "law." Medical ethics don't concern themselves with normal moral objects or even moral laws in the deontological sense; they are literally a book of rules that doctors (broadly) are not allowed to disagree with.
So yes, I think it's correct to read the doctors' responses as a positive claim: they're pointing out that it's a category error to appeal to their (potentially true!) moral beliefs.
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
>“The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at New York University. “We are not in the business of sorting sinners from saints. Crime is a legal matter.” This is so simple and newspapers trying to make it into a matter for debate is actually compromising that.
> The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are. The victims family is saying “Our principle is that people who stab Ed should not get a heart, therefore David should not get a heart.” The doctor is saying “Our principle is that we don’t use the patient’s past violence or convictions to determine whether they should get a heart or not, so the stabbing doesn’t disqualify Davi…
To me, you are undermining your view that life-taking is bad, by engaging in it yourselves. To me, this is a paradox. You seem to be standing up for your belief in the badness of life-taking, by doing something against those who do it, then you do something which goes against the very thing that you are trying to protect--which, to me, makes it seems like you are merely pretending to protect.
So, to me, their moral claim (?) that they are somehow "better" than this life-taker, and therefore have a right to say/do this life-save withholding, is completely undermined by their action of said withholding (or proposal to do it).
On the other hand, my ape-brain very much endorses the logic of revenge and sees no problem with an eye for a eye. It will teach people a lesson, let them know they can't mess with us, and let them know there are consequences if they try. Hopefully, my ape brain says, that will make us safer and rest easier, in future.
But the logical/rational part of me trying (but maybe failing) to consider this from an ethical or moral point of view, says, "Nah, that doesn't work."
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
>“The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at New York University. “We are not in the business of sorting sinners from saints. Crime is a legal matter.” This is so simple and newspapers trying to make it into a matter for debate is actually compromising that.
"The New York Post (NY Post) is a conservative[8] daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The Post also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
>“The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are,” said Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at New York University. “We are not in the business of sorting sinners from saints. Crime is a legal matter.” This is so simple and newspapers trying to make it into a matter for debate is actually compromising that.
Is there a limit to this impartiality? Should we have saved Hitlers life with a breakthrough transplant?
No.
> Should we have saved Hitlers life with a breakthrough transplant?
Yes.
It really is not complicated: Doctors are not in the business of judging their patients.