Xenotransplantation 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

Since the WHO is not, in any way, going to lift the ban, and one of the most efficient ways to increase the supply of available organs for the thousands of people on organ waiting lists is to make some form of donation and selling legal, other options must be sought-after. By combining two opposing viewpoints it is possible for a whole new approach to this rapidly growing problem to transpire, for there may be more agreeable aspects than what meets the eye.

Selling organs is a rising problem in the healthcare community, government and morality. Organ sales has become the topic of discussion for numerous reasons. Some of which being lowering the wait time on the organ transplant waitlist and taking advantage of the financially disadvantaged. This issue affects many people on many different levels, some people morally or legally but mostly importantly medically. What this basically comes down to is: “Who are we to judge what people do with their bodies?”. The answer to this question lays in many different sources. The simplified answer is no we can not tell people what they can and can not tell other people what they can and can ot do with their bodies.

With people making important decisions about their body every day the subject of organ donation becomes increasingly important. For years, the topic has been the source of many controversial debates regarding its ethical and moral ideations. Organ donation should remain voluntary for several reasons: first and foremost it is still considered a donation. Next, patients and their families should have the right to say no to medical procedures. And, lastly, bodily autonomy should be respected by healthcare professionals. Many argue, however, that organ donation should be mandatory as to decrease not only the time spent on an organ donation list but also the risks of mortality while waiting for a new organ. Families often have the final say in

The medical industry had been achieving more in the stage of medical advancements, though they are still in the early phase. Artificial organs have been one of those achievements. Although they have achieved such, artificial organs are not perfect. Most doctors as well as patients would prefer to replace a dying organ with a compatible human organ, rather than with an artificial or animal organ. Yet due to a there being less organs donated than recipients, artificial and animal organs are becoming more common in transplants. Most of this issue is because people are unaware of how organ donation works, the organs that can be donated, how many people are in need, and the advancements that have happened in the field. Organ donation saves hundreds of lives every year, but many lives are recklessly lost due to a shortage of organ donors.

I think that xenotransplantation could be an amazing option for people that have no other choice. I don’t think that it should replace organ donation but for people who are going to die before they would get to the top of the waiting list it would be a fantastic alternative. In my opinion I think that we should look into how to make organ donation a more popular decision. We could study the ways that have worked so far and

The idea of a chimera, a cross between species, has been around since the mythological creatures of ancient Greece, such as the centaur (a man’s torso with a horses body) and the griffin (the wings, head, and claws of an eagle and the body of a lion). Today, due to our advances in biotechnology, we are seeing this mythology become a reality, but in a different respect. Human-nonhuman animal chimeras are being developed by injecting animal blastocysts with human embryonic stem cells. The cells need to be injected at the right point in development, after the body plan of the animal has formed and before the immune system develops. It is done at this time to avoid

A person, who has a diseased heart, usually at end-stage heart failure, would require a heart transplant and for this case it is a two-year-old boy. Heart failure is a condition where the heart is damaged or weak and is not able to pump enough that is required for the body. When the heart is in its end-stage this means the condition is very severe and a heart transplant is needed as no other treatments have worked (NHLBI, 2012). The heart is usually donated from someone who is brain-dead, however there are not enough donors. This means that there are people in need of a heart donor, but are not able to receive one, so a new method has been found. This method is known as xenotransplantation.

The research and practice of Xenotransplantation has been around since the early 1900s, with doctors attempting to transplant organs from pigs, goats, lambs, or monkeys to humans (Biotech Learning Hub, 2011). Essentially, Xenotransplantation is defined as transplanting or grafting tissues and/or organs from one species to another species (PBS, 2000). Scientists and doctors around the world have been researching and experimenting for years on how to successfully complete this procedure without creating any risks for humans in the future. The main species scientists and doctors are now working with are pigs, for they are the safest species to use in their research since they found that they possess less risks for viruses compared to other species

From the beginning, xenotransplantations have been an ethically controversial procedure and for many diverse reasons. Diverse groups are fervently opposed to it: animal rights groups, for instance, are undoubtedly against butchering animals to collect their organs for some human’s sake. Although, most major religions aren’t resistant to the use of genetically modified xenografts to save human lives, the proscription of pig consumption poses some dilemmas for the Jewish and Islamic communities. “When divine providence is not being used to justify the genetic engineering of animals, then some evolutionary ethic of ‘the strongest calls the tune’ or ‘might is right’ seems to obtain” (Sherlock & Morrey, 2002,

Xenotransplantation originate from Greek “xenos-” meaning “foreign”. It is the transplant or use of live nonhuman animal cells, tissues and organs in humans or between different species. A similar approach is called allotransplantation which is the same procedure, just within the same species. These cells and organs can be implanted or enclosed in a device that is used outside the body ("ex vivo perfusion"). Xenotransplantation can help human beings suffering from organ failure to save lives. Every day between ten and eighteen people die while being on a waiting list for an organ transplant, and the development of the technology that deals with xenotransplantation could possibly contribute to creating a decline in the number of people suffering from organ failure.

Allotransplantation is the prime treatment available to humans with damaged organs (Cowan, 2011). However, due to a shortage of suitable organ donors, approximately 100 Australians die each year while waiting to receive an organ transplant (McCredie, 2010). To fulfil the need for organs, transplant specialists use the method of cross-species transplantation, also known as xenotransplantation. Xenotransplantation involves grafting or transplanting live organs (heart, kidney, liver etc.), tissues (skin tissues) or a collection of specialised cells (pancreatic cells, brain cells etc.) from one species to another (i.e. pig to human)(NHMRC, 2002). Along with any risks to the recipient of the transplant, xenotransplant carries risks for the community as well. The general public is concerned about viruses transmitted through a transplanted organ from animals to humans which makes this topic a social and ethical issue. Hence, the government imposed a temporary ban of 5 years on xenotransplantation in Australia and New Zealand in 2004 (Vincent, 2009)(Writers, 2010). This essay argues if xenotransplantation should be banned permanently in Australia by equally considering the advantages and disadvantages of the treatment.

Introduction: Scientists have developed a way for a pig heart to be transplanted into a baboon, which has been living for more than a year. This breakthrough means that sometime soon, we may be able to use pig hearts for human bodies, when we don’t have any human parts to spare. For this investigation, I am going to find out how Xenotransplantation works, people who are for and against Xenotransplantation and why, and also I will include my own opinion in this investigation.

New technology has opened many doors of opportunity for advancements in medical science. Not even in our wildest dreams would we have imagined a world where animal organs could be safely transplanted into humans. A few years ago, this process called xenotransplantation, was completed for the very first time. The only dilemma critics had with the process involved the chances of infection and organ rejection from the patient. Through experimentation and advances made in the process, these problems have been greatly reduced. Some doctors believe that xenotransplantation will perfect our world one transplant at a time by providing an alternate route to waiting on donor lists. Xenotransplantation is

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).