The First Pig-to-Human Organ Transplants Could Happen This Year (medium.com) 88
Every day in the United States, 17 people die waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant. To address this crisis, one biotech company is turning to an unlikely source: pigs. Maryland-based United Therapeutics says it plans to begin transplanting organs from genetically modified pigs into people as soon as this year. From a report: "We're right on that cusp. We're looking to get into humans within the next year or two," said David Ayares, PhD, in an exclusive interview with Future Human. Ayares is the chief scientific officer of Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics that's developing the pigs. "We think we have the pig that is going to be what we bring forward into humans in 2021 or 2022."
For decades, scientists have been hopeful that organs from other species could be used to replace faulty ones in humans, known as xenotransplantation. But animal organs trigger immediate and severe immune reactions when transplanted into humans.
Al Gore (Score:2)
The final step will be to transplant Bear organs as well.
Re:Al Gore (Score:5, Funny)
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very useful (Score:3)
This would be very useful. Pigs are roughly the size of humans, so it's a good match. Better than waiting for some poor idiot to get in an auto wreck and beg for their leftover organs.
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Which is precisely why people have been working towards this since the 1980s, at least (as far as I've been watching).
Of course, neither the human immune system, nor various country's legislatures are obliged to agree with hoomin'z ideas about what makes sense or not. The immune system certainly isn't making it easy, though we can probably thank AIDS for teaching us more about how our immune systems work, to illuminate why Sus sapiens(*) version 13
Did this in Doctor Who. Didn't turn out so well (Score:2)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki... [fandom.com]
Re: Did this in Doctor Who. Didn't turn out so wel (Score:2)
Fiction versus actual science, gee I wonder which will be real.
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Fiction versus actual science, gee I wonder which will be real.
Humor... right over your head it went.
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No no I got it .. I just have a peeve against people quoting fiction outcomes as things that might become real. I know that in this case it was a joke, but I still had to say it because I don't like it.
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People seem to not believe any kind of baseless shit but also act out on it. Just look at what's going on in Washington DC. Slashdot commenters would no exception with believing that they want being more important than what can be supported by evidence.
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Something interesting happened in Washington D.C.? What? The only thing I saw happening was a demagogue code-named "Tiny Hands" trying to carry out an armed insurrection, as he has been promising for most of the last 5 years. Totes normal, no surprise, just what we expected.
When will Agent Tiny retire to his dacha on the banks of the Lena, I wonder? Before or after receiving the "Award of the 9mm to the Occiput"?
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Though the point that I made was about this real world example of people acting on their delusional beliefs that was incited by fiction (stuff being said that was not backed up by evidence).
Though of course I don't find it likely that something from Dr. Who is going to turn out into something even remotely compar
Poetry (Score:4, Funny)
I see a lot of bacon-related poetry in the future of people needing transplants.
My heart is aching
I feel blue
Yours is made of bacon
I love you.
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No PigMan (Score:2)
Just a mental patient...
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Re:COVID-19 surplus (Score:5, Insightful)
When you transplant an organ into someone, you give them some drugs to prevent rejection. Those drugs cripple parts of the immune system.
Transplanting an organ that you know is full of COVID-19 is not a good idea.
Re:COVID-19 surplus (Score:4, Informative)
COVID-19 fucks over more organs than just the lungs. That's why long-term health consequences in so many people are so dire. Even if the COVID could be removed, you almost certainly don't want those organs.
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No. Too many people on the list die - about 6-7% annually. (Make sure you're an organ donor!) But in any given year your odds of getting a transplant are still much greater (6-7x) than dying.
As for bad organs, there's a lot of issues. One is you won't get another if they transplant a COVID organ. The anti-immune system drugs might make a bad donor organ worse than your current one. Doctors are hesitant to do it for liability reas
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But, isn't the waiting list so long that most die because of missing out?
The waiting list is long for several reasons. For example, you can't transplant a child's heart into an adult and vice versa. Too much difference in size.
You have to take into consideration blood type. If your blood type and the proposed donor's blood type don't match, no transplant.
Quality of the organ. Someone who drinks, smokes, does drugs or is obese is not a good donor (if they can donate at all). Their organs are already degra
Re:COVID-19 surplus (Score:5, Informative)
You know.... with all of the people dying of COVID-19, surely there's a surplus of organs to donate to people that are already immune. Just sayin.
COVID-19 and Multiorgan Response [nih.gov]
Abstract: Since the outbreak and rapid spread of COVID-19 starting late December 2019, it has been apparent that disease prognosis has largely been influenced by multiorgan involvement. Comorbidities such as cardiovascular diseases have been the most common risk factors for severity and mortality. The hyperinflammatory response of the body, coupled with the plausible direct effects of severe acute respiratory syndrome on body-wide organs via angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, has been associated with complications of the disease. Acute respiratory distress syndrome, heart failure, renal failure, liver damage, shock, and multiorgan failure have precipitated death. Acknowledging the comorbidities and potential organ injuries throughout the course of COVID-19 is therefore crucial in the clinical management of patients. This paper aims to add onto the ever-emerging landscape of medical knowledge on COVID-19, encapsulating its multiorgan impact.
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At the moment, about one person in 900 in the US has died of COVID-19. The mean size of people's social networks is about 600 people. It's going to take a while for the vaccines to make a dent, and the death numbers are still going up. If they continue at about the current level, it will be about one person in 500 dead from COVID-19 in the US in mid-April. At that point the majority of people in the US will have someone in their social network who has died from it. It is going to be skewed towards older peo
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Unfortunately, COVID has also led to substantial reductions in hospital capacity: so many ICU bed and staff are devoted to COVID, there is less available capacity for...well...everything else we normally use the health care system for.
Re: COVID-19 surplus (Score:2)
The ICU isn't a surgical theater. Moreover, hospitals where transplants are performed have dedicated areas for transplant patients, mainly because they're especially vulnerable to all of the other crap that other patients bring in. The last thing they would do is start mixing them with covid-19 patients.
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However, once you're out of surgery, you will need one of those ICU beds for a while. You'll also need ICU nurses who are currently busy dealing with the ICU crammed to capacity with COVID patients.
Re: COVID-19 surplus (Score:2)
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Yes, they keep the staff separate, but they still have to allocate that staff. That would be the staff devoted to COVID and not to everything else.
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Re: COVID-19 surplus (Score:3)
Being a recipient of a kidney transplant, I can say a few things from first hand knowledge:
- As has already been mentioned, immunosuppressive drugs will make the recipient more susceptible to mortality from covid-19. Although I would probably be fine if I caught the virus, the same can't be said for a new organ recipient. During the surgery, and for several months afterwards, they put you on an extremely high dose of immunosuppressive drugs, so your immune system is pretty well trashed until they begin titr
What are our Muslim mates going to handle this? (Score:2)
Every day in the United States, 17 people die waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant. To address this crisis, one biotech company is turning to an unlikely source: pigs.
You see, that animal and every byproduct of it is forbidden, I heard.
At the same time, some folks from that religion have been known to consume it though the majority do not and will not accept it.
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No. Jews are forbidden to eat pork products. Using their body parts for anything else is fine.
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Would this not apply to Jews as well?
No, because saving the person's life takes precedence over the prohibition on pig products.
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At the same time, some folks from that religion have been known to consume it though the majority do not and will not accept it.
Fortunately for me, Jesus came along and said, "Bacon is awesome!".
I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere in the New Testament.
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You did, although I don't think it applies here.
All the Abrahamic faiths basically share some version of Leviticus 11:7
Jesus found a nice loophole for Christians in God's divine message:
Take that, D
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That's the problem with religious laws though: They don't come with justification. Do this, don't do that, because God says so. Don't ask why. So even many centuries after the law should have been obsolete, followers still obey it. Or they bicker over which of the ancient laws to obey.
Sometimes the gods have a basis in science (Score:2)
That's the problem with religious laws though: They don't come with justification. Do this, don't do that, because God says so. Don't ask why. So even many centuries after the law should have been obsolete, followers still obey it. Or they bicker over which of the ancient laws to obey.
Yes and no. They didn't have the science to explain the why. They just had many anecdotes of people eating something being more likely to get sick. In their day it was pork, in our day its Chipotle :-). One characterization I've heard that makes sense is that religious laws can sometimes be a regional survival manual. Similar story with superstitious sounding stuff like this cave is taboo. An ancient person didn't have the equipment to measure the presence of an odorless colorless toxic gas that occasionall
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I like to think that there were religions with inferior commandments, that caused their believers to die from food poisoning more often, and that they went extinct because of that: people saw that those gods didn't work and abandoned them.
An evolutionary theory for religions. That sounds exquisitely meta.
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There were a few historical Christian sects which required followers be completely celebrate. No sex, no children. All gone now, for some reason.
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You are silly.
The kosher laws came with justification.
You should not eat animals that bath in their own shit. That is quite obvious.
The kosher laws are to prevent sicknesses, either due to ways of cooking
that lead to food that easily spoils, or does come from sources that are "dirty"
by definition.
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That's going pretty far. There is likely some practical element underlying a lot of religious rules. Some of them could have been absolutely critical in their time. Some of them are pigeons dancing in a box. Most of them are somewhere in between.
The FDA, for the most part, approves things based on science, which is the method we came up with to determine where things fall on the critical -> dancing pigeon spectrum.
Also, the fact that I said "Leviticus" and you conflated that with "Kosher law" suggests th
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Sure, but your point seemed to be that the knowledge was valid.
Take the injunction against eating pork as an example. It's often suggested that ancient Hebrews had an issue with trichinosis, living in a desert and lacking refrigeration and all. But research has suggested that's not really true, and it's not as if Jesus invented the fridge and made everything cool.
It's very possible that some ancient Hebrew, or Hebrew ancestor ate some bad pork, or maybe saw a friend or family member die from same, and start
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It's most likely one of the things that was added as the religion spread from Jews to the non-Jewish population.
Christians: "Ok, we will give you eternal life. But you need to stop eating pork. Also, we're going to chop a bit of your dick off."
Romans: "Hell no!"
Christians: "Fine... no cutting, and you can keep your pork."
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Re: What are our Muslim mates going to handle this (Score:5, Informative)
My understanding is that they are allowed exemptions for health and emergency.
Wikipedia has a quote:
âoeBut whoever is forced [by necessity], neither desiring [it] nor transgressing [its limit], there is no sin upon him. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. -- Quran, Al-Baqarah 2:173[7]
The only things which are made unlawful for you are the flesh of dead animals, blood, pork and that which is not consecrated with the Name of God. But in an emergency, without the intention of transgression and rebellion, (it is not an offense for one to consume such things). God is certainly All-forgiving and All-merciful.[8]â
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Stupidity of the religious variant comes at a price. Nothing new. Other religions pay other prices, but that kind of thing is never free.
Never thought I'd end up as a Cannibal (Score:3)
You have to ask, is a man with a pig heart that eats bacon a Cannibal?
Or are all of us Cannibals when we look at a man with a pig heart and think about it for even a second.
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You have to ask, is a man with a pig heart that eats bacon a Cannibal?
While not a heart or even an organ, I do have a pigs heart valve in me.
All I can say is I like pig butts and I can not lie. (sorry)
I'm fine considering myself both a cannibal as well as a lich. Even though I'm probably neither.
Valves are strange things.
They have their own internal blood vessels, but are mainly oxygenated by their surface. Normally sitting in the blood flow the heart pumps, but can be sitting in a container of oxygenated blood for transfer.
Since sitting in a bowl of oxygenated blood is pl
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I myself have a human transplant from a dead guy. Just call me Frankenstein's Monster. (Though the true monster in the story was that shmuck Dr. Frankenstein. Abandoning your child, really!)
For a while there I was a full on cyborg Frankenstein's Monster, with a plastic tube implanted into me. But they took it out, and I am just a monster now.
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Eh, I'll bite. There's two distinct problems of cannibalism.
(1) Cannibalism as a moral issue, which is the greater problem, stems not from the nature of the eater but rather from the dignity of the eaten. The only reason it cannot be immoral for a dog to eat a human is because a dog cannot really act morally (it can be trained, but it cannot do something "for the greater good"). But if an intelligent alien were to eat a human, for example, it could still be considered cannibalism in the moral sense: one int
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And we've been worrying about Lizard Men (Score:2)
It's the Pig Men that will replace us.
Lifelong Heart Patient (Score:5, Interesting)
> In one famous case in 1984, a newborn in California known as “Baby Fae” received a heart from a baboon but died less than a month later when her body rejected the organ.
My parents were pitched by this exact "team" of researchers, to use a baboon valve in my infant aortic valve surgery. My parents and I have long ago forgotten their names. They killed lots of people, not just Baby Fae (which was a full heart transplant) and you can note that their names are omitted from the Baby Fae wikipedia entry. I got a synthetic valve (4 decades and 2 more valves later, I'm still here), but notably the girl who was in the surgery theater next to mine was getting the exact same synthetic and died on the table.
Pig materials (similar to cadaverous materials) have a pretty short viability, once implanted. 2 years, is not uncommon, as they tend to fail slowly (and obviously). The blood thinner required for a synthetic has almost never been an impact to my lifestyle (semi-monthly blood tests, a little extra bleeding from cuts/bruises). Major injuries (even broken bones) would be problematic, but I've managed to avoid that. The ticking is an AMAZING tool to self-measure your heartrate or allow your family/partner to measure it without contact (like tachycardia, working out, etc). Animals like it too.
It's surprising how the literature has changed [acc.org] over the years. Now organics are all the rage and I would *NEVER* get an organic replacement valve. For some full organs sure, but I would still take a synthetic heart. Seeing animal organs on the horizon, should give some indication of how far away growing organs, has to go.
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Now organics are all the rage and I would *NEVER* get an organic replacement valve. For some full organs sure, but I would still take a synthetic heart. Seeing animal organs on the horizon, should give some indication of how far away growing organs, has to go.
To be fair, the technology has progressed a LOT in the last decade. Before we were just patching tissue with tissue and hoping to avoid rejection but now we're actually modifying the genetics of the source animal so that they will be [more] compatible with it's new human host.
I agree that synthetic organ replacement is a better bet... but only for the time being. We have really just begun to explore genetic manipulation (thanks to CRISPR gene modification technology) so in time it will become the superior
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My father (now 80) has two metal heart valves. Had them for better than 20+ years. You can hear the ticking.
He was given the option of the noisy ones, or quiet plastic ones that would need replacement (the metal ones are lifetime).
Other than blood thinners, no special rejection meds.
Heart valves (Score:2)
We've been transplanting pig heart valves for years. They last about 15 years average.
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FIRST???? (Score:2)
I know that people have received pig heart valves for decades; one article [nih.gov] says since the 1960s.
Amazing technology (Score:2)
Humans and pigs (Score:2)
Warning: it gets really dark (Score:1)
Time for Pig Jokes! (Score:1)
Q: What’s the difference between a politician and a flying pig?
A: The letter F.
Q: Who is the smartest pig in the world?
A: Ein-swine
Q: How do you take a sick pig to the hospital?
A: In an hambulance!
Q: What do you call a pig with three eyes?
A: Piiig!
Q: What do you get if you cross a pig with a dinosaur?
A: Jurassic Pork.
A few were disappointed (Score:2)
"Oh, we're the donors? Damn!"
Porcine Overlords (Score:1)
We've already seen it... (Score:1)