I have always had the donor check-marked on my driver's license - The solution to this problem is simple: Give preference in the line to people who have verifiable documentation indicating their donor status (say 5 years minimum). Not everyone will elect to change their donor status because of this amendment, but I'll bet in a nation of 300 million, tens of thousands of people will do this, simply out of self-interest - everyone wins. Children and the elderly still get preference, regardless of status, etc
Pigs could save people if only we had a compassionate bunch of pigs leading this country. Then they could adequately fund health care helping to make more procedures readily available.
I love this Tech and Design Issue CONTENT but the Tech is badly Designed. or v.v.
I cannot see the photos of any one of the articles, nor the authors' names.
Other than that,
I would like to have a pig organ, pigs are smart and playful and can take care of themselves in any environment.
We used to take piglets swimming in pool and sledding with us. Much cleaner and smarter than dogs.
I refrain from bacon not because of my delightful childhood swimming, sledding, and playing with piglets--smarter and cleaner than dogs--but because of the formaldehyde-infused pork smell when I dissected them in grad school as a Teaching Assistant prepping Lab Practical tests.
I would be honored to have a pig donor, and feel better knowing it was contributing to my health as an organ--not destroying someone else's life as bacon.
And it probably had a far more enriched environment as you pointed out!
If you don't like it, register as an organ donor! Xenotransplantation will become a necessity because there are not enough organs available for transplantation.
There are too many people on this earth and we are wiping out every last non-human species as fast as we can. All things must pass, including humans. We must stop the exploitation of other species for the purpose of keeping our destructive species alive.
1
To properly weigh these issues, have the guts to show how pigs really "live" instead of your quaint photo. It is a macabre nightmare to witness how humans torture intelligent pigs.
2
Pigs are animals. Humans are animals. We have no more right to life and happiness than the pig does. As soon as a pig can give legally informed consent to be an organ donor I will be happy with this development.
2
Are pig organs kosher for use in transplants?
I am inclined to think that they are for saving a life.
1
Disgusting use of natures' creatures! No consideration for these animals. I don't care how many people die waiting for organs, We have NO RIGHT to exploit another animal for human needs. The author spoke not ONE WORD about this. Shame on him. It's all about money.
2
This is disturbing.
2
Articles like this one reinforce the notion that human life is sacred and other animals' lives and experiences matter much less than a human's. Other than an appeal to a religious text, there isn't good evidence that a pig's, dog's, parrot's, elephant's, or whale's life and potential for pain, fear, and suffering is any less than a human's. The reason we treat so many animals so poorly is because we can.
It seems to me too, that our disregard and discounting of other animals is a large factor in climate change. If we cared about them, we might not have destroyed so much of their natural habitats, we might not have polluted the rivers and lakes they live in, we might not have had the diseases that result from eating them, we might have tried to curb our burgeoning population growth.
Articles like this one turn people's attention away from the giant problems of our own making confronting us. Saying that in a few years someone in need of an organ will get an animal's implies that everything will be as it is today. Articles published in the NYT have challenged that rosy outlook.
4
This is a holocaust for animals. This breaks my heart
6
How long before we're eating humans...Soylent Green anyone?
3
Baboons aren't monkeys. They are apes.
Baboons are monkeys. The apes are the gibbons and siamangs, the chimpanzees and bonobos, the gorillas, and us.
1
Humans never fail to find an opportunity to murder animals to further our own selfish aims. That we see such a craven need to dominate all other living things is pathetic.
4
Another possible way is to create human beings, through DNA editing, that grow much faster and have as weak brains as pigs, for the same purpose.
3
Could pigs benefit from human organs?
4
Of course we have the right to enforce our will on the natural world and inflict pain and suffering on any animals we choose. Of course we do. #HumaneSociety #farmsanctuary #animalrights #vegan #vegetarian #holistic #ecosystem #animalsmatter
2
Why is this a good thing? There are too many humans on the planet already. And aside from being abuse of an intelligent animal species (pigs) who knows what unintended consequences or "side effects" will appear? No thank you. When my time is up, it's up.
4
The idea that we can kill pigs to save humans has a name: speciesism.
I am a vegan and don't eat animals.
4
Leave the animals alone!
What is going on at SUNY with their needless and outrageously cruel experiments on cats (Google it); how animals are raised in captivity and slaughtered for the inhumane greed and gluttony of obese humans; safaris in hunting preserves; Chinese medicine, a joke in itself; and all of the cruelty to animals all over this world, is just despicable. We kill for "sport"!
More humans need to donate their own organs. That's the answer.
But most people are too lazy, ignorant, or squeamish to do so. It's much easier to breed in captivity and slaughter an animal for any variety of reasons.
Human beings are really the ultimate scourge on the planet. We've polluted the land, the air, and the waters of this beautiful planet to such an extreme, and then we spend trillions of dollars trying to figure out ways to colonize first the moon, now Mars---which we'd only pollute, anyway--and we can't fix problems here on Earth like homelessness, poverty, equal rights for all...
We are a strange and twisted species.
5
I am sick of articles like this that consider the only lives worthwhile are human -- how much more cruelty are humans going to perpetrate on these defenseless creatures -- and of course, not a single thought about how intelligent these animals (pigs in this case) are! I'm disgusted with us humans as a an animal group (we are)-- we cannot consider animals industrial products there for our continued cruel exploitation. What a horror show this entire thing is! Remember humans -- you maybe next.
3
Exploitation of animals from factory farms to research labs. While we are at it we could clone people and harvest their organs.
4
To paraphrase Indiana Jones, on behalf of those who keep halal and kosher everywhere, "Pigs. Why did it have to be pigs?"
If you refuse to eat genetically engineered foods, you should refuse to accept a genetically engineered organ, even if it means you will die.
1
How soon is soon for this medical advancement be available to humans?
It’s a slippery slope from breeding pigs to use for human body parts to breeding humans to use for human body parts. Read “Never Let Me Go.” In a world of diminishing natural resources, we could all one day wind up like Cormac McCarthy’s narrator in “On the Road” when he is forced to choose between his humanity and his survival. How we treat the least of these is how we treat ourselves. Wake up, humans. Myself included. We are on a gasping planet.
4
This is so patently immoral I can't even read the article. The title tells me all I need to know and to weep. Animals are living creatures with their own rights and NOT objects for us to exploit. And to DH in Boston - would you pay a some shady Cobrahead his/her price to pull an organ from a human being? Would you have another child to be the organ donor to your first? Those are the 'choices' people are making as they make ignorant, desperate decisions that forever hurt other lives. For shame. Because you can does not mean you should.
5
People kill animals for food every single day. And yet a lot of the people objecting to this article on moral grounds probably eat animal products, too. When you all go full vegan forever, that's when you can claim moral superiority. And even then, it's not the same comparison. Eating meat is not a life-or-death matter, but getting a transplant is. Eating meat kills a lot more animals every day, and they live in much worse conditions (the research pig pas PLAYING WITH A BALL! Show me a meat farm that does this). And yet, the non-critical lifestyle choice of eating animals, which inflicts more cruelty and to larger numbers, is generally considered okay (as in, it's not banned by law or even controversial, not in the way animal-human transplants are), but the life-or-death matter of using a much smaller number of animals (raised in better conditions) for saving human lives all of a sudden is monstrous. Just think about where your priorities are for a second, and how you weigh each of these acts. Because this is pure hypocrisy. If you really want to make an impact, advocate for veganism, not for animal-free medical research. And consider why you think saving one life with another is so much more immoral than serving somebody a bacon breakfast. Unless you are all fully vegan yourselves, you have no ground to stand on here.
1
You are right DH, and poster hadn't even read the article.
I refrain from bacon not because of my delightful childhood swimming, sledding, and playing with piglets--smarter and cleaner than dogs--but because of the formaldehyde-infused pork smell when I dissected them in grad school as a Teaching Assistant prepping Lab Practical tests.
I would be honored to have a pig donor, and feel better knowing it was contributing to my health as an organ--not destroying someone else's life as bacon.
And it probably had a far more enriched environment as you pointed out!
What right do humans have to inflict suffering, pain and death on other animals to extend their own egocentric, pathetic and meaningless lives? Sentience is not a "god-given" privilege of humans, because there is no such thing as "god" and because many other animals are sentient too - for certain all vertebrates and possibly some invertebrates such as the octopus too. The writer of this disturbing piece ends with a description of a baby pig playing with a ball and an off-hand comment about the little importance that he places on this intelligent and sensitive creature's life. It reminded me why I hate my species so much.
21
I used to think that the way we treat animals would one day be looked back on with as much baffled horror as the way we (most of us anyway) now look at slavery. But now I believe the human species will drive itself into blessed extinction long before any such enlightenment occurs.
2
Thank you. Exactly. And appreciated. #animalrights #respectallbeings #humanesociety #farmsanctuary #woodstockanimalfarmsanctuary . @johannaclear
1
Exactly what I was thinking.
1
For those of us on the transplant waiting list, this is encouraging. A bit disappointed in this paragraph:
“If your lucky day ever comes, it will come only because someone else had an extremely unlucky day: A healthy and immune-compatible donor will have died in a way that leaves a healthy target organ unscathed.”
Living donors do not have to have “an extremely unlucky day,” In fact, many who make the sacrifice (relatively safely) often feel lucky to have been able to so something so meaningful.
1
While this appears to be a promising research development it is far from reality. If we recall baboon heart transplants that were performed in Pittsburgh several years ago and failed, the issue that was never discussed in public was Baboon virus antibodies began showing up in human organ recipients. We still do not understand the implication of such an infection. Imagine viruses that are normally seen in pigs without causing any disease entering the blood stream of humans whose immune systems are suppressed! We might unleash a dangerous epidemic! While this is promising but unlikely to be panacea anytime soon.
Another case of technology gone amok and another step in the dehumanization of people. The idea that we harvest and use other life forms, like pigs, for whatever purpose that will eke out a few more years is just pure hubris on our part. I am probably alone in this, but I do not fear my mortality and I certainly don't want any modified pig organs put in me in order to delay the inevitable. The experience of living is more than just keeping a body alive; it is the totality of what we do in the world, and some things, such as genetically modifying other organisms purely for human benefit, are not an ethical trade-off.
5
You are not alone as I totally agree with what you said!
1
Should I ever be so unfortunate as to find myself in need of a cross-species transplant, I will wait happily until I can be assured the organ comes with the donor's full, informed, consent.
3
Given the undoubted expense and probable complications of growing human organs in pigs, I strongly suggest that we first change to an implied consent policy for organ donation, allowing people to opt out but assuming they do consent if they have not opted out. This model is used with success elsewhere in the world. We should adopt it here. This genetic engineering project is still in development: how soon is "soon?" Not soon enough for people currently on waiting lists.
2
My first reaction to this article is nausea. The idea that a human life is worth more than a pig life, which is what the idea of breeding animals for organ harvesting implies, ignores the most basic thing about being on planet earth: it's an ecosystem. Until we learn how to be a part of it, which means not exploiting every other creature on the planet simply because we can, the system will respond by making the planet less and less inhabitable for us humans. Breeding captive live animals to take their organs is unethical and is cruel beyond measure. You can rationalize it by saying it saves lives, but it is science for the sake of science, not for the sake of saving anyone at all. The image of the pig that is posted with the article represents an enormous lie. The animal is in no way complicit in the scheme to rob it of not only life and animal society, but also of its genetic heritage.
3
Death, forest fires, the tides, seasons changing and sunrises are all natural happenings. Cutting up pigs? Not so much. We all see what happens when there are too many trees and too many people using too much oil. I know we all want to be Superman and save the world, but that's a comic book.
People not having kids should be lauded and put on the halftime show like Vets. Thank you for not bowing to peer pressure.
2
Students becoming med students cut up pigs all the time, to your unknowing benefit.
Not one word on the utterly questionable ethics behind the exploitation of another species for the sake of another's obsessive selfish quest to live beyond its limits.
4
Well....yes the issue of animal rights is front and center. On a note of curiosity, how will those that shun eating pork react to a life saving measure that involves the transplant of a pig organ?
"A 150-pound pig is uncannily humanlike in organ size and function." Very true. And pigs are intelligent, sensitive and sentient beings, just like human beings.
Breeding humans and cultivating their organs would be deemed unacceptable, and the same should go for all other non-human animals.
4
Good Lord, the self-righteous vegans and PETA loonies are out in force on this one today! You are all here, reading the NYT, because of vaccines and medicines tested on animals. I lost one of my best friends who was waiting for a kidney, brought on by kidney failure due to a not-great open heart surgery that could have been possibly made better by a pig valve which his insurance didn't cover. Equating animal life to a human life is wrong. Treating animals that we use humanely is important, true. However, that does NOT mean that we shouldn't look for human health solutions that utilize animals. If they told me that I had to shoot the pig to get my friend his kidney myself, I'd do it. We still need primates to do work on HIV vaccines. Finally, let me ask all the so-called ethical vegans here: When is the last time you did something for your fellow humans, not animals? As in volunteer at a soup kitchen? Donate to a library in a distressed neighborhood? Coat drive? Usually the answer is...crickets.
3
Humans are the stewards of all living creatures. This is ethically and morally reprehensible and unjustifiable.
1
I'm stunned at the one-sided nature of this article, which made no effort to engage with the moral and ethical questions surrounding the use of non-human animals for this experimental research. I expect more from the NYT than to simply present the potential gains without questioning the cost of these gains. Organ donation is greatly mismanaged across the US. I believe the NYT just DID an article on this very subject in regard to NY hospitals. Why not engage this article with some of the facts presented in the previous article concerning delays in organ donation? For instance, why is organ donation hardly ever discussed or promoted? This is a macro-level program that requires diverse solutions. Relying on the deaths of genetically altered beings when human parts could be harvested within the species is a waste of life and a devaluation of animal lives.
2
"...creating a future in which designer swine, raised in pathogen-free indoor farms, will serve as spare-parts factories for our ailing, aging bodies."
--How do people come to the conclusion that any -- ANY -- inhumane action against animals is justifiable? Disgusting how many people would casually accept this use of pigs as though it were fine, as though it were their due.
“In my home country,” she says, “millions of people need organ transplants, and most of them will die before they can get one. According to Buddhism, it’s good to die with a full body, so there’s very little donation culture.”
--shift your country's cultural outlook on transplantation (it can be done) or you don't get transplants. Why should millions of pigs have to be sacrificed for those millions of people who don't believe in transplants?
3
If we're worried about what climate change is doing to the world, we must have a clue that the major factor driving the 'need' for all the polluting factors that have driven it is the insane overpopulation of the planet, much of that driven by the very best intentions of medical science to interfere with the natural process of life and death. Drought, famine and war, which are related to climate & will increase with climate change, seems to be the only natural 'solutions' to overpopulation left & that's horrendous.
I just hope that as this process spreads across the planet, the affects on population are not any worse than medical science has already brought us.
7
I love animals. They deserve life as much as we do. HOWEVER. To all you rabid critics calling this research a monstrosity, let me ask you a question, and please think about an honest answer. Picture holding your own child, dying in your arms for a lack of available human organs. You see her little eyes begging you for help, and you see the light go out of them forever. Or maybe not your child, if you don't have one - how about your mother. The one who gave you life and raised you. She is still young, lots of years left in her, if only for that organ which will never materialize. Kiss your mother goodbye forever. Or, if you don't have it in you to muster some emotion even for your own mother, think about yourself. Picture yourself tied down to a hospital bed you will never leave, waiting for an organ that will never come. You will die within weeks, maybe days, maybe tomorrow.
Picture any of these scenarios, put a hand to your heart and tell me honestly, would you seriously turn down a life-saving organ and choose for your loved one (or yourself) to die so that the pig can live. Yeah yeah I know you love animals, but seriously though. Would you throw away your child/mother/own life so that a pig can live. When push comes to shove, I highly doubt that you would. Because words are easy. Ideals are easy. And it's easy when it's not you who's dying, but some nameless stranger. Then you sure love that pig. But don't act like you'd be this holy if it came to YOU.
7
As a living kidney donor I would say that all those people's chances of life are better served by working on developing a more rational system that encourages more organ donation.
This research is a scientific boondoggle pure and simple.
8
For people who value all life, and don't think that other animals are only here to serve humans, the point is not that no research should be done into organ transplant. It's that the time and money should be funneled into research that's geared toward finding a way to repair or replace organs that doesn't involve the use of other animals.
11
If we truly respected other beings, we would never engage in this kind of abuse of life.
1
A counter point: I have offered several times to donate a healthy kidney. However, I have been turned down because I cannot financially afford the time away from work. I am a low wage employee (l.t. 30k/yr), and the cost of my time compared to the cost of dialysis is paltry. Is there some insurer or other entity out there that can facilitate a human-based, low tech solution?
13
sadly, the system does not support this scenario - I agree that it can be a slippery slope that may lead to coercion, but in Maine there are efforts to assist with donors, and I have seen successful gofundme campaigns that help fund the donors missed wages. Good luck, your heart is in the right place.
1
With nary a though given to the suffering of animals, the Greek physician Galen performed a grotesque vivisection on a screaming pig in order to demonstrate to an enthralled audience how vocal chords work. Much later, Descartes performed vivisection on a screaming pig, all the while insisting in animals don't really feel pain. While we moderns think we've advanced beyond this, pay very little attention to the ways in which we cause animal suffering. In truth, we haven't changed one iota in seeing them as goopy machines put here solely for our use.
To the extent humans find it acceptable to treat animals as machines that can be broken apart or chopped into pieces so we can use them however we see fit, we should be fearful about our future. After all, we, too, are animals.
60
The figure of 20 dying per day is about the same as the number of Veterans committing suicide each day... just sayin'
The lives of every living being on earth have equal value .... the moment we humans declare we're more deserving of existence than other living beings is the moment we slide into Means justifying Ends. And this is what we humans have done for far too long ...
26
Absolutely opposed to this development. "20 Americans dies each day waiting for organs"?! Organs are not commodities. When we started treating them like that, we lost our sense of life, which includes...death.
We are overpopulated, we are arrogant toward animals. Yes, it would be very sad to lose a family member to organ failure. It is also sad to lose family members to...anything. Death is a part of life. Let's get real about this.
28
I gave a kidney to my brother and although this Earth is overpopulated and although it is costing a fortune to society, I am glad my brother is alive. Would I have preferred that a pig go under the knife instead of me? I don't know, today we can grow chicken nuggets out of a chicken feather so hopefully we will soon grow human organs out of our own DNA... and leave animals alone.
Being at the top of the food chain means we can use and eat them all, but we also have a responsibility to protect this planet, and a lot of work to do there. Overall this article is way too insensitive about the pain we are inflicting to thousands of animals, although for now it is hard to avoid.
1
I wish insurance companies would pay for people to donate. I don't mean pay them. I mean, pay for the operation, hospitalization, aftercare etc. It seems the humane thing to do and I'm sure more people would try to donate. It is ridiculous in this day and age for people to have to die because of this situation. It ALWAYS comes down to money or the lack thereof. Why isn't humanity valued?
4
Oh man, this is great. Think about how many meals wrapped in bacon we can eat when we know that if our arteries clog we can just get a new heart wrapped in bacon!
Surely this will be priced to be affordable for the bacon cheeseburger crowd. Right?
8
The ONLY reason people die waiting for organs is that other people selfishly do not donate theirs. If the US had an opt-out donor system - where, upon death, you're presumed to be a donor unless you've indicated earlier you don't want to - the problem would vanish and untold suffering would be alleviated. Other countries use this sensible and humane system, but of course, as with gun control, we have to be "exceptional."
And living donation is also an option. Twelve years ago, I was one of approximate a dozen people in the US to donate a kidney to a stranger (via Matchingdonors.com). Now, more people are doing it. Donating was a sublime experience - one of the best things I've ever done. Here's my essay about the process: https://www.hillaryrettig.com/2011/03/28/vegankidneydonation/
Even the morally fraught act of paying people for their organs (pre- or post- death) is better than the grotesque, expensive research described here. What's the point?
17
In this case, what is moral and right is entirely up to the individual. Some people refrain from donating due to religious beliefs etc. State cannot and should not engage in matters relating to these kinds of matters. It should not be mandatory as this leaves the door open to the possibility of all kind of obscene, criminal behaviour in order to obtain that organ.
Unfortunately, the point here is profit. Billions of dollars worth apparently. It is, as you say, grotesque.,
Hard to think of a more repugnant development.
23
Leave the poor pigs alone!
26
Am I alone in seeing the delicious irony of Americans--for most of whose approach to dieting is to eat like pigs--now find themselves turning to pigs to supply replacements for the organs that our pig-like diets have destroyed? Instead of waiting for pigs to "save" us from our own bad eating habits, why not save ourselves by changing our diets? Oh, I know. We can't do that because it would entail self-reflection, self-honesty and the courage to change on our parts (all characteristics in decidedly short supply in 21st Century America). Sorry, pigs . . .
14
I understand your having a problem with this medical procedure, but please don't blame the people who need organ transplants for their illnesses. Most need transplants simply because of bad luck. Some people are born with defective organs. Some people develop illnesses later in life that cause their organs to fail and others because of accidents. Try to have as much compassion for ailing humans as you do for hogs.
This is amazing work that will save lives. We are on the cusp of another great revolution in science and medicine. Like those in the past, it will likely come at an unfortunate but highly acceptable price.
"The science of life is a superb and dazzlingly lighted hall which may be reached only by passing through a long and ghastly kitchen".
3
As someone who may soon be registered for a heart-lung transplant, I'm appalled at the lack of empathy for human suffering shown by some holier-than-thou comments here. Firstly, don't conflate the food industry and their inhuman methods with this. Secondly, I'm as against animal cruelty as much as anyone - and I'm not just saying it, I make regular donations - but it is fanatical to reject a potential solution for millions around the world on the basis of valuing animal life over that of humans. It's so easy to grandstand and moralize...but for some of us, this a life or death issue we face. Got a healthy heart? Use it to care for others like you do your precious animals.
17
It is not valuing animal life over humans. It is valuing life period. Human life, animal life. Humane treatment of animals should be a top priority, as much as saving lives of humans. They are not here for our use. It is not ethical. If we can grow these organs in a lab using cells I'm all for it. It is time for human beings to realize that we are not god. We don't have the right. We have taken over the entire planet and used it for our own species. You can save a few humans now - sure. But over the long run our species will not survive its addiction to eating meat. I'm sorry but there are better ways to save humans than this.
33
One way of thinking about the ethical concern is consent--not ability to suffer, or hierarchy of life--but consent. An animal cannot consent to this. Does inability to consent translate into we-can-do-whatever-we-need-to-do? I think not. It's our power over animals--really, an absolute power, that allows us to justify this.
4
And I doubt that most of the commenters here are vegans. Seems odd that so many people are saying this is unethical for the pigs, yet will probably happily eat bacon and other meat throughout their life. Unless you're a vegan, tons of animals will die to feed you, or line your clothes and sofa. I felt for the pigs too reading this article, but this is hardly any different than how we kill thousands of animals a day just for lunch rather than saving a life.
1
odious - creating living beings as a means to an end for the ruling class, the humans -
23
Humans have no right to use pigs in this way unless we stop eating them first. They are viciously tortured for their entire lives at factory farms, and they all come from factory farms -- don't believe the deceptive labeling.
12
They do not all come from factory farms, I grew up 10 miles away in VA, you are clearly new arrival "Making DC Great Again".
NOT.
It's telling that the top comments, at the moment, are mostly critical of this development. Overpopulation and the ethical ambiguity of raising and consuming animals are cited as reasons to decry the technology as "vileness," "horrible, "cruel," etc.
What about the intrinsic value of human life? The parents praying for an organ to save the young life that they've poured their hearts into? Are we really that jaded and misanthropic that we bemoan medical miracles?
Let's have some compassion for humans.
12
That we care about animals shows we are evolving in the right direction. I do have compassion for humans but at such an unethical cost. There are better ways. This reminds me of the justification for testing on lab chimps. Nope. No medical advancement is worth that.
19
What "intrinsic" value of human life? Would you kill your family do so his organs could be used to save the life of a serial rapist or mass murderer?
"Family dog," that is.
There is something inherently wrong with intentionally taking a life to save another. This is not what Nature-God intended.
18
" For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
Henry Beston
11
I am torn on this topic. As a healthcare professional, I want to save the lives of others and help them live as healthy and full of a life as possible. As a vegan, I would never want to hurt any animal. The last sentence of this article gave me a little more direction; "If so, we will be much the better off for it, even if we cannot say the same for the pig." It just goes to show we as humans are still very selfish. While these studies can be remarkable for humans, we are not thinking about how much pain we put on another being, just because it's not human. It's time to stop and try again in a different lane.
26
The last sentence did not mention the primates that receive these organs either and die within days or months. Hideous to contemplate when you can focus on doing a better job asking selfish humans to donate their organs.
1
oh, please...it's a pig...animals are not "another being", and if you or yours were needing a transplant, this "vegan" nonsense would out the window if you are a compassionate human "being"...
Balanced and intelligent. Facing this true moral quandary, there is one clear path: full steam ahead on the alternatives. Pour research money and effort into the promise of biotech.
1
This picture of a cute pig, in a hospital looking healthy and happy, could not be less appropriate. The reality will be much more grim.
18
Death is natural. Instead of finding and funding ways to prolonging human life, let's find ways to better deal with our loss, mental, and physical pains. Let's learn to let people go again.
26
No matter how you do it, giving humans organs from animals is a bad idea.
The human kingdom and the animal kingdom are separated for a reason.
The parts are not interchangeable.
3
No.
The time has come for us to stop treating animals like they are somehow there for our experiments or for consumption. Our bodies give up; it time to reconcile that and go with it. Having something be killed so I could live, would not be healing.
20
In the movie "The Power of the Heart", a 60 year old woman received a heart from a 21 year old girl hit by a car. The donor was a vibrant young lady with dreams and goals, many unfulfilled, and the recipient of her heart completed most of the girls bucket list. There was magic and synchronicity in that human donor exchange. What kind of heart would beat in us that had not lived some kind of human life, if we were to begin replacing such an intuitive organ with a version of a GMO heart, made from an environment completely void of emotions (except fear and death) love, family, and human experience? To me it is a Frankenstien endeavor.
8
Perhaps scientists should consider reading the book "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro. The book deals with cloning humans and using the clones' organs for transplants. Why should pigs suffer?
20
There are some serious ethical considerations here. Should an innocent animal live institutionalized in a lab until it is gutted for organ harvest so some rich fat cat can go back to eating sugary donuts, greasy burgers and butter-topped steak morning, noon and night after his heart replacement? In Buddhism, all life is sacred because all beings have been our mother in endless cycles of reincarnation with only humans having the ability achieve enlightenment to escape. Yet how many bother to try?
6
Not everyone awaiting an organ got there because of poor diet choices...
This is a very intriguing development. It might also mark a real and important opportunity for us to reevaluate how we treat animals. As long as the pigs are treated humanely throughout the whole process, I think this is great.
Isn't this premise the height of unethical behavior? I would want my relative saved but this is like bile farms in China.
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We steal their fur coats; we hack off their tusks, horns, fins; we put them in zoos and aquariums (aqua-prisons); we ride and drive them, as if they were vehicles; we race them; we hunt them with high-powered weaponry; we beat them up at rodeos; we force them, through pain and fear tactics, to do tricks for our entertainment in circuses; we eat them.
We are emptying the oceans of fish and destroying wildlife habitats across the globe. Free-living animals are on the run from us the world over. We are obliterating species so rapidly that we are now causing “the 6th mass extinction,” a rate of loss not seen since the age of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
And now we’re going to farm them to use their organs in our bodies? Vis-a-vis non-human animals, humans are monsters. But we tell ourselves that we are superior, the most intelligent species, to justify this mad-science.
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Beautifully put. And, unfortunately so true. We continue to torture animals for our amusement and it's 2018! And don't forget the big money gambling to see which animals can perform under torture. I see those beautiful race horses being made to run though they are much too young to be running like they are required to do, then whipped to the finish line. The people involved in these activities are fond of saying that such treatment does not hurt or bother the animals, some say the animals enjoy it. They are fools, trying to rationalize their cruelty. The ignorant mindset that allows this disgusts me completely.
Because we deny climate change so that oil companies can accumulate unbelievable wealth, I am watching my state burn. It does not rain anymore like it did when I was a child. Rainy days are becoming increasingly rare and the vegetation turns into perfect kindling. I think of the thousands of animals burned, partially burned, their habitats and food source gone until they starve to death or die from their injuries. And trump blames the state of California.
Trump loves to "deregulate stuff," and I am afraid that what few regulations we have to protect animals may disappear.
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Indeed. And to what end? So we can have a bunch of old humans running around with transplanted pig parts, trying to live forever, when in fact no one gets out alive.
To me, this looks like a scientist vanity project.
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@Catherine Gore
Perfectly stated.
Now we are even going after jelly fish to make pills that "supports brain function." What does that mean "supports"? Is that like rhino horn "supports" limp male organs? I guess it's like the GOP con that tax cuts to the wealthy "support" everyone's economy. As smart as humans are, they are also the craziest life forms on Earth - because we know better!
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I really think that organ donation should be something that you have to opt out of rather than opt in to. This would solve a lot of the problem right there.
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Pig meat consumption globally has increased exponentially in the past 100 years. What has been limiting to realizing the potential of using pig organ for transplantation has been the inevitable hyperacute rejection. In layman's term that is rapid rejection. Every human has natural antibodies in the blood stream to pig tissues and organs. As soon as a pig organ is transplanted the natural antibodies will bind to the organ and trigger the activation of the complement system, one of the first lines of defense against foreign proteins. The genetically engineered pigs can potentially overcome hyperactive rejection due to the replacement of the pig proteins with equivalent human proteins. Alternatively as our group of collaborating researchers have shown or in combination with the genetically engineered pigs administering proteins that block complement effectively could accomplish the prevention of organ rejection.
Now that the science behind xenotransplantation or transplantation across species such as the pig to human has been almost resolved and pig organs are thought to be clean and of the matching size as humans with similar physiology the only hurdle that remains is FDA approval which also takes into account ethical considerations. I would have no problem if slaughter of pigs for human consumption is stopped but humane consideration is given to engineered pig organs say one of the 2 kidneys or one of the two lung lobes of pigs to alleviate human organ shortages for a decade.
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Besides, it will seem a little cannibalistic to eat pork after receiving a transplant from a pig, no? If only we could make veggie bacon taste as good as the real thing.
pig heart valves have been used for quite some time without rejection...
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I believe they are highly scrubbed and stripped, but I would prefer this too after seeing a friend deal with the inevitable fall out from a mechanical heart valve.
I agree with other commenters here who find the idea of further exploiting other species for humans' benefit to be appalling. There are already TOO MANY PEOPLE inhabiting this planet! We are like locusts upon the land, stripping our Earth of its finite resources. We MUST limit human reproduction NOW.
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In our desperate attempts to not accept death and to try anything to keep dying people alive, we turn and torture and kill our fellow animals. Well, it will all be over soon. Humans will kill off the planet's remaining wildlife and they will stop torturing animals only when they themselves die from global warming. I welcome the day.
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Have a lot of mixed feelings about this subject. Love animals and love my family. That said, the callous illustration of a pig “comically” in a hospital gown hooked to an IV really, really is insensitive to the reality of the experience these poor animals endure in lab. Shame on whoever thought this was cute.
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Let us ask the ever-prescient Ms. Margaret Atwood what road this takes us down. I'm sure her friends Oryx and Crake might have some opinions on the subject as well.
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Thank you for this comment. When I started reading this article my thoughts immediately went to Ms. Atwood's excellent book "Oryx & Crake."
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200 people a day die from gun shot wounds in this country. We're worried about replacement organs?? Maybe we wouldn't have to replace so many organs if we would address the causes? We need to clean up our environment and start living inside of Nature's laws. Yet we think our intelligence puts us outside of Nature and we create religions that tell us we are superior to Nature, not part of Nature. Raising animals to give humans replacement parts furthers the environmental ignorance.
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Yes. Living inside of Nature's Laws.
We have to realize we are part of Nature and not act like we own it
4
This is depressing on so many levels.
The first thing that comes to mind is overpopulation. People are living longer and medical "advancements" such as this will only increase those numbers. Meanwhile, IVF makes it possible for women to have babies who could have adopted or fostered children instead. The planet is only getting hotter, and every single one of us is responsible for the consumption of fossil fuels.
Now we want to raise pigs for the express purpose of keeping more humans alive? Or, those who can afford it anyway. We'll just keep using up everything around us until the world is no longer suitable for life. How many more generations will it take?
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those who have a problem with "overpopulation" always talk about how "others" need to be reduced, not themselves or their own...
1
At what point do humans realize what they've done to animals as the most invasive species the planet has ever known is cruel, inhumane and something we can never really come back from? Pigs are not here for our use like plastic. We don't have the right to use animals for science. We do, because that's who we are. That's who we are and that's why we can never fully reverse the effects of climate change. It is depressing and horrible that we do not have any morality when it comes to other creatures who have the misfortune of living alongside our monstrous species.
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Or you could make organ donation an "opt out" instead of an "opt in" choice and have a state or national data base.
4
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 121.3 million hogs were slaughtered in 2017 to put meat on some of our tables. Perhaps as a gesture of gratitude to that species for providing thousands of us with better lives by the use of their organs, we could let the remainder off the hook, so to speak. That would be until the day when advances in medical science make even that tragic taking of sentient life unnecessary.
5
I am confused as to why this has been aligned to cruelty to animals. While i appreciate that killing animals for food is a major contributor to many of our problems on Mother Earth, my past includes ancestors who only ate meat. I would not be here without them. Change in diet occurs for many contextual reasons. That said, I find this report fascinating and the research appears to be quite rigid and respectful to the animals. Will they die, certainly but so do many animals each day in cruel and awful ways.
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"my past includes ancestors who only ate meat"
Only if they lived in the Arctic, where humans were not meant to live.
2
"Will they die, certainly but so do many animals each day in cruel and awful ways"
how is adding to the death toll, and justifying it with "so do" make any sense? These particular animals are being "born" with the expectation that they will be killed for the benefit of humans alone. It is a disgusting concept.
I read this today while preparing to give a lecture on regenerative medicine.
Both as a physician and a vegan, it seems better to use our own cells to grow new parts than raising other animals for that purpose.
Stephen Rinsler, MD
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Still another reason, perhaps the best reason, to go VEGAN!
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thank you thank you and thank you. It grieves me to know that human beings do not even consider the well being or the rights of other sentient beings on this earth. If they did, we would not be in the eco nightmare we are in today. Their habitat would be respected, they would be healthy and thriving and we would have the paradise on earth that nature intended. instead, look at who we are. @johannaclear #animalrights
"The organs inside this little pig — or perhaps more realistically, those of its progeny — could someday find their way inside me or you or one of our descendants. If so, we will be much the better off for it, even if we cannot say the same for the pig."
I disagree - Why humans think they are the puppet master is beyond me. Leave well enough alone, yes the science is amazing, but misguided. As a living donor of my left kidney to a total stranger, I am supporting an increase and advocacy for this research vs. the research that intrigues those in this article. My transplant was part of a 6 person chain donation - one of which was told she had less than a year to live. She is now thriving, and when I randomly see her in my community, I get a hug from a living person. Myself, I have had no negative recourse. I was told that I would miss 4 to 6 weeks of work, I missed 2. Happily.
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"If your lucky day ever comes, it will come only because someone else had an extremely unlucky day: A healthy and immune-compatible donor will have died in a way that leaves a healthy target organ unscathed."
Not true for the thousands (6,182 in 2017, according to UNOS data) of organ recipients each year who receive a kidney or liver lobe from a living donor. We could choose to end the wait for kidneys and livers today.
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