Should Xenotransplantation Be Allowed? Essay

The medical practice of organ transplantation has grown by leaps and bounds over the last 50 years. Each year the medical profession takes more risk with decisions regarding transplants, how to allocate for organs, and most recently conducting transplants on children with adult organs. “An organ transplantation is a surgical operation where a failing or damaged organ in the human body is removed and replaced with a new one” (Caplan, 2009). Not all organs can be transplanted. The term “organ transplant” typically refers to transplants of solid organs: heart, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and intestines. There are two ways of receiving an organ transplant: from a living human or an organ from a

The successful use of cadaver organs was made possible by the development of immunosuppressive drugs like cyclosporine. The practice of utilizing immunosuppressive drugs has led to a decrease of transplant failure-rejection of a new organ- by the recipient’s own immune system (Kaserman, 2007). As research continues to look for new ways to decrease organ rejection rates, the majority of recipients take immunosuppressive drugs and will need to do so indefinitely (Ehlers, 2002). Kaserman states that as the transplant industry grew, a need for guidelines became apparent and hence requested that Congress create a governing body (2007).

The 21st century however forecasts an astonishing increase in innovation in another direction. While previously overshadowed by its larger cousins, physics and chemistry, it seems likely that the biological sciences will steal the limelight in the future. Mapping the genome, reversing the aging process, and finding a cure for terminal illnesses, all represent primary objectives for science. Unfortunately, the ethical questions posed by innovations in biomedicine are far greater than those posed by advances in the physical sciences. Reproductive cloning is one of these innovations, and one that arguably poses the greatest threat to the world as we know it. The universal truth, blindly accepted by man for millennia, held that a human could only be born through the sexual union of a male and a female, to be exact, of an egg and a sperm. By cloning, however, a human life can be created in the laboratory. This is done by taking human DNA and inserting it into an egg cell, sans genetic material. The resultant cell is identical to the original, and can then be inserted into a uterus, either a human or an animal one, and be grown to term, to produce a baby, while circumventing nature’s means of reproduction.

Throughout time Organ transplanting has been an important medical procedure that has been present, not only in the United States, but around the globe. It is the process of surgically removing an organ from on patient and then transplanting it into the other. This practice is usually used when a recipient’s own organ fails to function properly or has

Today’s technology develops so quickly that many impossible things become true; the example is cloning technology. Cloning is a process used to create an exact copy of a mammal by using the complete genetic material of a regular body cell. Different from the common propagate, cloning needs only one cell and without sex. Cloning, as of recent years, has become a very controversial issue in society but cloning can have several positive effects for the well being of society. Many people in society believe that scientists should develop a clone human but many people and especially the government are against human cloning. Hundreds of

     The audience for this paper is comprised of those readers looking to gain knowledge on the issue of xenotransplantation. This group of people is unaware of the dynamics of the ethical arguments surrounding this current issue. This audience does not have a specific age or belief, reflecting the varied positions of the argument. Due to this hunger for factual information, they do not wish to have someone else’s views imposed on them. Instead, they wish to define and establish a view of their own.      

He claims “Xenotransplantation should still be given serious thought because of its potential to alleviate the organ shortage crisis and ultimately improve the human condition” (Sharma 25). However, Sharma also gives some insight as to why doctors should be cautious when taking Xeno to the next step. He states that “Violent immune responses have been known to occur in individuals where an incompatible organ has been placed in a host, with death being known to occur in a matter of hours”(27). Sharma’s statement raises thought of the possible risks associated with transplantation. One of the risks is hyper-acute rejection, where the recipient’s immune system quickly identifies the animal organ as a foreign entity and attacks it (27). Despite the risks being great, people considering xenotransplantation often have no other

Reproductive cloning could essentially replace sexual reproduction and change the way of life for future generations.

Glucose is an important metabolic substrate for the growth and development of cells as it is an important metabolic substrate for most living things and is an energy source for many cells throughout the body. (1) Specialised cells in the pancreas, called beta cells, detect glucose in the bloodstream and release insulin so that glucose can enter cells down he concentration gradient.

The idea of finding a way to cure people of diseases with their own cells is one that scientists, physicians, and those who are afflicted by such diseases find very enticing. Therapeutic cloning is a process that scientists believe has the potential to achieve such goals in the future. While therapeutic cloning brings with it a variety of potential benefits and innovations, it also carries with it a polarizing ethical conflict that poses a strong impediment to furthering such research and development. By realizing therapeutic cloning for its great potential benefits and world changing implications and disregarding any ethical considerations that may deter such advancement, the proper focus and open-mindedness necessary to achieve success in the field would be achieved. Therapeutic cloning, like all medical endeavors, includes a multitude of challenges and flaws, but no very important medical achievements come about without extensive research and continual attempts at success.

The demand for an organ transplant continues to grow and when an organ becomes available there are multiple precautions to take to make sure the body does not reject the organ. The certain anti-rejection (immunosuppressant) medication that needs to be taken before a transplant to decrease the body’s immune response from attacking a foreign object (the transplant organ). The medication also lowers the immune system. Therefore, the immune system does not cause the body to reject the organ. Statists have shown, that up twenty percent of patients that get an organ transplant, experience one out of the three organ rejections.

Cell-based therapy with the fusion of a single nucleus to an egg can treat certain diseases (Andrews, 87). Researchers have found that heritable diseases cause a lot of early deaths in many Americans. On average, two million Americans die each year and the statistics show the impact. 750,000 die from heart diseases, 500,000 from different types of cancer, and 150,000 die as a cause of strokes. Approximately 70% of these deaths are related to genetic conditions that may have been prevented (92). Using cloning to save people from their failing organs and genetic illnesses would benefit many by giving them the opportunity to live healthier, longer lives.

The main concerns of the Commentary perspective were that although there are a lot of new strategies for cross-breeding; a pressing example would be a live organ donation which links the exchanges between extended families with recipient family members, live donation is only possible for paired organs like a kidney transplant. Beginning the search for other sources of replacement organs has expanded. The main concerns of the Attitudes toward Death perspective was the recognition that all living beings understand that both birth and death and may perhaps serve to relativize the request and/ or need for more organ replacements and that may help us to see what is at stake: on the one hand, there is a possibility of an additional lifespan for a given individual who has a lower quality of life and on the other hand, some intervention in the environment is necessary for all other living beings as well. The main concerns of the Animal Organs perspective were that the companies involved in the development of xenotransplants insisted that they are raising and willing to raise the animals in environments that were sterile as possible. Individual animals are then inspected and went through periods of quarantine before admission to the factory herd. The main concerns of the Risk Assessment perspective were that there may be a slight risk to present and future generations, or there might be tremendous risk to present and future generations, but it is rather hard to determine. The main concerns of the Religious Perspectives paragraph highlighted how successful xenotransplants would be about ensuring the quality of life that they give to recipients, how much human DNA is transferred to the animals and vice versa, and to what degree of suffering the process is understood to entail for all the animals

Xenotransplantation: a subject about which people hold strong contrasting views. Rare attempts have been made to transplant animal organs or tissues into human beings since the early years of this century. Curiosity surrounding the procedure known as Xenotransplantation has increased in the last few years because it is seen as one way of reducing the shortage of human organs for transplantation. Currently, this shortage strictly edges the potential of transplantation for treating human diseases. The worldwide requirement for organs is growing significantly. For example, in 2004, the United Network of organ sharing found that over 100,000 patients could have had an advantage from organ transplant, but only 29,000 were available. In 1963 Doctor Keith Reemtsma a surgeon who experimented with organ transplants. Thirteen chimpanzee’s kidneys were transferred into humans. Twelve patients survived for 60 days. One patient survived for nine months, so this option was considered a viable one.

The patient died nine days later. Another experiment conducted in 1984 attempted to use a baboon’s heart to save a newborn baby; the baby only lived for twenty days. The longest time a patient has lived with an animal organ is nine months, where the recipient received a chimpanzee kidney. The early failures of xenotransplantation, however, led many to believe that animal organs are too different from human organs. The recipient’s immune system recognizes the foreign organ and rejects it in spite of immunosuppressive drugs. Powerful immunosuppressive drugs are given to any patient receiving an organ, human or animal, in order to suppress the body’s reaction to the foreign organ. Without the immunosuppressive drugs, the body will reject the organ within a few hours after surgery (Natural Life 23).