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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

#421

Post by Jesus_piece »

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.

Sadly I think if or when pig heart transplants are successful in humans, pigs will be commoditized even further, if that is even possible. Poor creatures :(

Not a reason to stop this research in my opinion but I agree with the comment I’m responding to - wish people could care for the animals we treat as test subjects, seems somewhat cruel to not do so

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

#422

Post by jorvi »

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…

> The number of experiments may sound barbaric on the surface, but it was to reduce the overall number of pigs used in trials.

You should read ‘ The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’.

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

#424

Post by hulitu »

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."

Because, as George Orwell said: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.".

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

#425

Post by graderjs »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #412
graderjs wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird that these statements are made (and I don't mean by you, it's a trope to make them by people in general in discussions like this, I'm not picking you out) that it somehow justifies, or ameliorates, the awfulness of experimenting then dissecting (as someone said) a helpless intelligent creature. I think these statements justify animal trials and using it to benefit humans definitely. But it doesn't justify or ma…

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#426

Post by hulitu »

graderjs wrote: post #394
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…

Weird that these statements are made (and I don't mean by you, it's a trope to make them by people in general in discussions like this, I'm not picking you out) that it somehow justifies, or ameliorates, the awfulness of experimenting then dissecting (as someone said) a helpless intelligent creature. I think these statements justify animal trials and using it to benefit humans definitely. But it doesn't justify or ma…

If you think that humans make terrible things to animals, you should check what they do to other humans. There are "beautiful, human" stories about a certain Dr. Mengele, or Unit 731 or Guantanamo...

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

#427

Post by NateEag »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #273
cipheredStones wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few (if any) Jews believe in eternal damnation. Generally speaking, Judaism places very little emphasis on the afterlife, and there's no widely-held doctrine about it. To the extent there's a shared belief at all, it's that everybody goes to a place called Sheol, without differentiation by merit.

That's so strange that Christianity and Judaism can have such divergent views on the afterlife. I guess it never occurred to me (as a former Christian) that Christian views on the afterlife are totally derived from the new testament.

There's a good case to be made that modern evangelical views on the afterlife aren't even based on the NT.

Annihilationism (cessation of existence, "the second death", "fear him who can destroy body and soul", etc) is much closer to what's in the NT than the widely-accepted Infernalism (eternal torture in hell).

That's how it reads to me, anyway, after decades of reading the Bible.

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

#428

Post by mahkeiro »

elvis10ten wrote: post #378
pipodeclown wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A thought experiment I always like to posit is: what if we were the animal that needed to be tested on for the benefit of medical research that could safe a lot of the members of an alien species that is much more intelligent than us. Would that by extension also be justified? I eat meat by the way so I'm not trying to supplant my ethical views on you.

I have a similar thought experiment but on “pets” —- What if an advanced civilization uses humans as pets

I don’t know but if it is like my cat who is free to come and go, I don’t see the problem. That’s not really different from the human life.

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

#429

Post by freetinker »

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.

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

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

#430

Post by hungryforcodes »

tcgv wrote: post #360
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…

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.

Do you EAT pig?
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