What is the true nature of the universe?

Xenotransplantation

The waiting list for heart transplants is ever growing, while less hearts are becoming available. Lives are going to waste as the number of usable, available hearts for transplants decreases. Xenotransplantation is a new discovery and the quantity of patients willing to consider this alternative will have a huge effect on the waiting list. Is this the alternative that thousands of helpless patients have been waiting for? Alternative routes for heart transplantation have long been debated but much controversy and hazy moral ground surround the other possible solutions. Could Xenotransplantation be the future of heart surgery?

Xenotransplantation involves the transplantation of either live cells, tissues, or organs from an animal into the body of a human. The animal organs replace our own doing the same job and hopefully keeping someone alive. But xenotransplantation isn’t just for organs, it’s other uses include grafting skin cells to grow on the human body and repair skin after burns or using pig islets to help patients with diabetes.

Xenotransplantation is most common between humans and pigs. The first time a human’s body part was replaced with an animal’s was in 1838 when Richard Kissam replaced a human cornea with one of a pig. This operation went about with no ethical debate, but instead brought about an admiration for this new way of saving lives. The bible states that “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,” [Matthew 6:22] and so replacing that would be as though to cover your soul with the view of a pig. If society can accept cornea xenotransplantation, saving a life using a pig’s heart is an amazing discovery that could change thousands of lives.

On the other hand, your cornea doesn’t support blood flow, and therefore, doesn’t feed through any other part of your body and is almost as simple as a contact lens. Whereas your heart is central to your life and every organ and cell relies on its work. You could argue that life is the most valuable gift of all, and if you rely on a new organ to live, then you should exhaust all options before giving up, including using a pig’s organ. So ethically, it would make sense, if possible, to save a life, even if it would give you ‘the view of a pig.’

More than 5000 heart transplants take place every year but 50,000 people are on the waitlist, and that number keeps growing. Usable hearts are a very limited resource and less people agree to donate every year, yet more and more people have begun to trust science and are willing to have a heart transplant. Only 27% of hearts from donors after brain stem death are eventually accepted for transplantation. This means we are left with the devastating inability to save lives and must stand by watching people die saying that we have done all we can with the limited resources available when the possibility of xenotransplantation could save the lives of hundreds more. Ethics bodies and religions such as Judaism also promote xenotransplantation to prolong or save the life of a human being who is ill or dying from organ failure. Surely a person couldn’t argue that we stop the progress of future transplantation and let people die, just because it doesn’t fit their exact moral views?

However, it’s not just a fact of life or death. Pigs are bred and genetically modified and then brought to slaughter solely for human benefit. The RSPCA states

6

that all animals must have ‘freedom from pain, injury or disease: by prevention through rapid diagnosis and treatment.’ Breeding, modifying and butchering pigs could not possibly be seen as ‘freedom from pain’. Equality is also a vital part of this argument. Not only can animals' dignities be destroyed, but so can the recipient of the heart. A stigma will always attach itself to change, especially a change to something so personal to an animal, to the centre of your soul, to what defines you as being alive – your heart. How could you replace your source of being or love with the organ of an animal? A continuous balancing act levelling animal rights and human dignity will undoubtedly slow the future of transplantations.

To conclude, despite the unquestionable struggle to equalize science and dignity I believe that pig hearts should and will be the future. A life is arguably the most precious gift of all, and the opportunity to give someone back their life, however science allows, should be an accepted and crucial part of our medical future.

- Xanthe H-E (Re)