From the article:
"[pigs] they can be genetically manipulated to produce organs less likely to be rejected on transplantation."
Is this true? How would these manipulations be carried out?
Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
321–330 of 527 posts
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
They did so a pig to human kidney transplant recently however it was on a brain dead man as an initial test. Probably soon it be on a living patient. As a person on a kidney transplant waitlist, it given me some hope for the future. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-pig-to-human-transpla...
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Calm your horses. His body was donated to science by the family, I'm sure they knew what he wanted and did just that.
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you see on social networks is a reflection of who you choose to follow and engage with. I use social networks to engage with people who actually make those decisions and they do not encourage any of that.
Well, we are talking about journalists ("blue dots"), and their choices are their matter ... https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/twitt...
Denying medical care is made either by individual health care professsionals or, in cases that require more consideration, health services ethics commity. I’d be surprised is anyone stating what you said would keep their medical license, let alone would be allowed to sit in a commitee.
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Side-comment that doesn't apply in this case, but worth mentioning: "regardless of who they are" seems like a shitty blanket principle to have. For example, hospitals are overstuffed with COVID patients means regular patients die as a result. In many cases, "The overwhelming majority of the patients had COVID-19, and 98% of those needing acute critical care were unvaccinated." This means people who choose to not take…
It's a slippery slope.. I think the uneducated are less likely to be vaccinated and it doesn't seem right to refuse service to someone because they believed something that was incorrect. Say there were people with mental handicaps that fell in this camp, it would be even worse. And where do you draw the line for who gets help for stuff unrelated to covid? Having a do no harm type moral code seems like the best way to…
Even simpler: By refusing treatment based on choices stemming from mistrust of the system you are validating that mistrust.
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems pretty damn simple to me. If you wouldn’t put someone to death for a crime, you shouldn’t deny them medical care in a manner that will kill them for the same crime. It’s functionally and legally the same as putting them to death. Withholding necessary medical care is the same as withholding food, water, air, or shelter.
We deny people waiting for organ transplants medical treatment regularly. there simply aren't enough organs to go around. In the case that people are already having life saving organs withheld from them, it makes sense to prioritize. I think people have the ethical issue in this case backwards: the reason this guy got this transplant is because it was an experiment . We effectively used an ex-con as a guinea pig. (Pe…
> If this guy had died due to the experimental heart failing, we'd probably be seeing a bunch of op-eds about our moral failure to prevent exploitation of a vulnerable (ex-)prison population.
On the contrary, you’re probably massively overestimating how much the society at large cares for convicted felons.
The sad reality is it’s not a lot.
Which is why I doubt we’d see a single op-ed about it.
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#326I just want to say huge respect for Dr Mohammad who despite his faith decided to do what is right. It might not be well known but most muslims are raised with strong beliefs, even in educated countries (eg 85% in Pakistan support sharia). God bless Dr mohammad
Porcine heart valves are largely accepted by Islamic scholars in situations where there are no alternatives available.
Abortion is largely accepted by Catholic scholars if there is, otherwise, a high risk of death. That doesn't mean all Catholic medical practitioners would carry out such an operation. I don't think the respect is misplaced.
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#327From the article: "[pigs] they can be genetically manipulated to produce organs less likely to be rejected on transplantation." Is this true? How would these manipulations be carried out?
This video is a good overview of the whole thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d8svvqX1c0
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be better if you got to keep the meat rather than letting it go to waste. Then you could indulge in autophagy by proxy.
If we're genetically modifying the pigs to be more like humans, I wonder if there would be health risks with eating the meat - specifically from prions. Similar to those that come from eating humans. Admittedly probably negligible until we modify them a heck of a lot more than we are right now (if they do theoretically exist).
Pigs are already similar enough to humans that there are major risks from parasites; I don't think the small modifications we've seen so far would significantly increase prion risk.
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the FDA will insert itself to regulate medicine wherever it can. For example, the FDA has been pushing to regulate diagnostic tests as medical devices. It’s funny how Americans surrender medical autonomy to the government but draw a strict line in the sand in other issues
> regulate diagnostic tests If only there hadn't been a major high profile collapse of a fraudulent diagnostic test company recently.
Regulations are written in blood, then the blood darkens and people forget why we have regulations.
Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
> regulate diagnostic tests If only there hadn't been a major high profile collapse of a fraudulent diagnostic test company recently.
The hostility towards FDA on HN is incredible. I wouldn't trust some VC funded startup bros with anything related to medicine at all without having passed every single regulatory board tangentially related to whatever they are doing, even more so after Theranos.
I wouldn't trust startup-bros either, without regulatory oversight. That being said, the hostility towards the FDA is not without basis (see below). Though I would argue that much of that hostility it due to it doing too little, rather than too much.
Why is the FDA Funded in Part by the Companies It Regulates?
https://today.uconn.edu/2021/05/why-is-the-fda-funded-in-par...
Hidden conflicts? Pharma payments to FDA advisers after drug approvals spark ethical concerns:
https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-conflicts-pha...
Gaps, tensions, and conflicts in the FDA approval process: implications for clinical practice:
https://www.jabfm.org/content/17/2/142.long
Revisiting financial conflicts of interest in FDA advisory committees:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0009.12073
(edit: more links)