Japan researchers creating guidelines for animal-human transplants

Good. If xenotransplantation becomes standard medical procedure throughout the world, human organ harvesters in China will be out of business. This article reminded me of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel “Never Let Me Go.”

The guidelines, however, do not cover the transplantation of entire organs from animals.

Then what's the point of guidelines in the first place?

Then what's the point of guidelines in the first place?

To cover the area they cover, which in 2016 was:

transplanting pig islet cells into type 1 diabetes sufferers

Are you of the opinion that if they didn't do guidelines at that time for absolutely any possible future issues that could arise, they shouldn't have done any guidelines at all?

Will the pigs have a say? And carry organ donor cards?

Extremely unnatural and against the laws of nature-opposed!

It will save lives.

But with xenotransplantation involving the transplantation of live cells, tissues or organs from one species to another, concerns remain regarding the transmission of unrecognized diseases to recipients and, in turn, the general human population.

Fortunately this risk is much easier to control compared with the unsupervised commercial activities with wild animals that are the norm in many other countries, guidelines similar to what is already being done for experimental animals (SPF) would be enough to reduce this risk below background levels, and for the patients it would be much safer (in this aspect) than receiving from a human donor.

"We want to ensure that the concept of xenotransplantation becomes correctly recognized by society as a viable new option,"

Unfortunately in countries like Japan that have a very poor record on donations this is a huge priority, countless people die every year because people simply don't donate after death.

Researchers in the United States have also previously conducted xenotransplantation of genetically modified pig kidneys to brain-dead human patients.

Even with the further complications of keeping the patients bodies alive, these trials have given very positive results, advances in this field have accelerated a lot in the last few years.

https://nyulangone.org/news/pig-kidney-xenotransplantation-performing-optimally-after-32-days-human-body

But with xenotransplantation involving the transplantation of live cells, tissues or organs from one species to another, concerns remain regarding the transmission of unrecognized diseases to recipients and, in turn, the general human population.

It's Japan, so cat girls here we come.

Extremely unnatural and against the laws of nature-opposed!

Explain please!

What is "laws of nature"?

Why will you oppose to this when it can save humain live?

Extremely unnatural and against the laws of nature-opposed!

A large part of medical science could be described this way, from use of antibiotics to surgery or blood transfusion.

Do you oppose to a degree that you do not use medical services? or is this just a selective rule that you arbitrarily apply sometimes but not others?

At one point in medical science, it was considered unnatural to operate on a human.

kurisupisu

Extremely unnatural and against the laws of nature-opposed!

"Laws of nature"..."The natural state of things"

No such stases have ever existed permanently. Any system or population reaches a state of meta-stability and eventually becomes knocked to a new state by energetic influx/outflux or mutation/selection pressures, respectively.

There are laws of nature and as we get smarter (hopefully), those will even become more bendable.

*laws of physics" not "nature".... my bad

It will save lives.

Ask the pigs.

Wouldn’t monkeys make the best animal alternative in terms of genetic compatibility?

Wouldn’t monkeys make the best animal alternative in terms of genetic compatibility?

Genetic compatibility is not the only thing to consider, non-human primates are closer genetically, but are also much more likely to have unidentified pathogens that could jump to humans, they are much more expensive and difficult to breed (specially those that grow to a size necessary to harvest their organs for adults) and also ethically is much more difficult to justify their use.

Can you imagine what everyone might think of a person socially if thier heart is from a pig

So you imagine lots of people would simply choose to die instead?

Even now people do choose to die instead of receiving blood transfusions or being treated with antibiotics, but both things still save a lot of lives. Of course your personal preferences is what will decide what you will do if you ever need a transplant and xeno is available, but assuming everybody else (and their families) would take the same decision is not such a sure bet.

So, to all of the people opposed to even having a pig heart/organ transplant. The doctor will say, " You will die within the week if you do not have this transplant"....What would we all say back, yes please, I want to die.

The military application of this type of tech is mind boggling

What military application would you imagine from the transplant of pig kidneys and hearts? These are the realistically possible transplants the article is talking about.

Can you imagine having the skin changing abilities of a chameleons and poisonous lizards and echo location of a bat with night vision with the olfactory of a bear and the claws and double jointed spine of a hyena with wings of a flying squirrel and claws of a wolverine ?

Your examples are not realistic, but even if they were they would still be worse than current options that would give better results without having to transplant anything, much less the brain of the animal to get sensory advantages (Head of Vecna type of problem?)

Time to worry when they do face transplants.

Uh no i didn't say that

Your comment was that you were not sure about "that" (that it could save lives).

The only interpretation is that you were not sure anybody would make the choice of living instead of having an organ from an animal. You can always say you would choose differently, but saying that it is doubtful the option would save lives you are also saying you believe people would choose to die.

Neither of us know that answer so don't bother continuing the debate

You may not have interest on the discussion, that do not allow you to decide if anybody else still have it.

Why opposed?

There are bioethical considerations and more.

DNA and its transmission is poorly understood in natural cases, operations and the like.

Cross contamination and the risks of passing animal DNA to future generations is the risk

After all mistakes do and will occur…

An interesting side bar..... The doctor heading the research team that did the pig heart transplant was Dr Mohammad Mohiuddin a Muslim.

Can you imagine what everyone might think of a person socially if thier heart is from a pig

"How are you today sir would you like spam in your breakfast muffins"…?

Pull the plug

No non human organ transplants for me thanks

I'll take your share. Fill me full of whatever pig guts you need to keep me alive, thanks. I'll stop eating bacon as a thank you.

Yeah like how difficult wouldn't it be to transplant some skin between the arms like a flying squirrel

I wouldn't mind that.

There are bioethical considerations and more.

None of the problems you give are realistically possible, at least not more than what they would be if they were important also in human to human transplants

DNA and its transmission is poorly understood in natural cases, operations and the like.

For mammalians? it is quite well understood, there is no detectable transmission of DNA from non-infectious sources to human cells.

Cross contamination and the risks of passing animal DNA to future generations is the risk

Not a realistic risk, if that were the case eating the animals would be a much higher risk, it has been done since prehistory so any chance of this happened would already be evident.

After all mistakes do and will occur…

Not if the mistakes require impossible things to happen in order to bring dangers.

Rex what we once thought of as being unrealistic a couple hundred year's ago or less is now 100% reality

At this point they are not even close to being realistic, you can actually make those criticism in a few hundred years when there is any chance of them being actually possible.

All those experiments being conducted now if you were as aware of science as you claim to be you wouldn't be so pessimistic with my imagination

No, they are not, these "experiments" are not happening outside of comic books and movies.

Humans already use echo location among other things i mentioned aren't that far out from doable accomplishments

They are completely out since you are talking about transplantation, meaning the whole sensory pathway would need to be transplanted from the animal, this would include the brains.

The actual accomplishments are done with technology that do not require any transplant, is easier, cheaper and faster to use a machine to achieve the functions you mention.

Unless of course you somehow claim to know what scientific tests absolutely everyone everywhere has ever done or doing

That is a terribly poor argument, you made the claim they are being done, then you have to support that claim with evidence.

If not somebody could simply say the same "how would you know if somebody has not done something that makes those experiments impossible to perform?" can you prove this is not being done?

For example you don't need to transplant a bears head to gain equal olfactory sensory achievement

Just modification of the pituitary gland

That makes absolutely no sense, the pituitary gland do not confer any olfactory function.

Yeah like how difficult wouldn't it be to transplant some skin between the arms like a flying squirrel

What is impossible is for that skin to be able to support any kind of enhancement for humans.

Not to mention it is still much simpler, easier, faster to use equipment to get even a better function than what would be gained with such transplants.

And you see? you were the one saying there was no point in continuing the debate, but here you are disproving your own claim.

What would we all say back, yes please, I want to die.

And now I know you are in favour of might is right as your guiding ethics I need not be concerned about your own demise when it is universalised. Well, I could say the same about people who eat pigs too. We are smarter and stronger so they deserve to be in our service, seems to be the idea.

MoonrakerToday  09:47 am JST

It will save lives.

Ask the pigs.

Who will end up as bacon or tonkatsu anyway.

@virusrex

Your belief in the infallibility and blind trust in scientists is rather concerning.

Scientists are human and humans are prone to errors ergo…

Your belief in the infallibility and blind trust in scientists is rather concerning.

Scientists are human and humans are prone to errors ergo…

Nobody is trusting scientist to be perfect, it is just that your worries are out of reality, there is no way a mistake can result in suddenly mammalian cells becoming infective and behave as pathogens as you worry, you make no realistic argument, and this becomes very clear the moment you could not defend your claims when confronted with actual arguments. Mistakes do not magically make impossible things to happen.