Xenotransplantation Issues

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

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

     Recently, the low numbers of human donor organs and short term mechanical “organ” replacements have given cause for

Xenotransplantation is a controversial medical procedure that has been debated by medical ethicists for many years. Xenotransplantation or Xeno is defined as the short-term transplantation of animal tissues into a human. It has been argued that the procedure is unethical because of the use of animal organs. However, twenty two people die each day waiting for an organ transplant, so we must act soon to save the thousands of lives that are still waiting. Xenotransplantation is a highly debatable procedure and offers a unique solution to the ever growing organ transplant list, making it a viable and worthwhile procedure.

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.

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 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

So many solutions are coming out of the medical field. There’s lots of new medical discoveries and innovations that can terminate the organ shortage crisis. From creating stem cells to 3D printing and going through the regular route of organ donations, patients can receive their transplants within a reasonable time period. There are benefits and there's also defects that can be found in any medical innovation. Scientists are always problem-solving to find solutions to help extend human life. This allows scientists to experiment and improve their research techniques. With so many lives at stake, the race to solve the organ shortage is on. Since the new discovery of xenotransplantation, and finding solutions to help extend this idea. Xenotransplantation is one of the many astounding medical advancements in history and can change the course of science in the future. Human life is precious and needs to be examined profoundly. All lives come at a high cost and should be

Xenotransplantation is the process of transplanting of animal organs, tissue or live cells from animals such as pigs, into humans, simply animal to human transplants. This has many social and ethical impacts, but also has many helpful aspects which could possibly change the lives of many people in the world. There are many different opinions related to xenotransplantation discussing the ethics, social impacts and the potential for an outbreak in humans of an animal disease, are just a few.

A xenotransplant is a perfect way to prolong someone’s life or allow the to heal faster and better. What this is is the process of grafting or transplanting organs or tissues between members of different species. These transplants can improve the life of many that has no hope on waiting for a transplant in the organ donor list by giving them some extra years.

Due to a worldwide shortage of organs for clinical transplantation, scientists have come to a point where they are considering xenotransplantation. This arises moral, ethical, and health problems that must be noted when discussing this problem. Xenotransplantation consists of harvesting organs from other species stated by the article. Pigs are predominantly targeted because they “contain alternatives to human tissues” stated by the article. Regardless of the severe shortage of organs I believe slaughtering pigs and harvesting their organs could potentially cause a threat to health. Alongside health problems this is unethical and unmoral.

There are a few reasons why animal organs shouldn’t be used on humans. One reason is that they can be very dangerous. “Heart valves from pigs are routine. And medical researchers are now studying whether cells from animals can be used to help the human pancreas produce insulin” ("animal organ transplants debated"). If we don’t have all the right research and try to transplant an animal organ to a human, we our goanna kill them. Another reason is “people who get animal organs, cells or tissue should be followed for life for any sign of animal germs, and they should

If cloning for therapy became available, its application would thus likely be restricted to chronic conditions. Wilmut , who cloned Dolly, has suggested that cloning treatments could be targeted to maximize benefit: an older person with heart disease could be treated with stem cells that are not a genetic match, take drugs to suppress her immune system for the rest of her life, and live with the side-effects; a younger person might benefit from stem cells from cloned embryos that match exactly. Devolder and Savulescu have argued that objections about economic cost are most forceful against ‘cloning for self-transplantation’ than, for example, against cloning for developing cellular models of human disease. The latter will enable research into human diseases and may result in affordable therapies and cures for a variety of common diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, which afflict people all over the world. Finally, some have pointed out that it is not clear whether cloning research is necessarily more labor intensive than experiments on cells and tissues now done in animals.

Physicians today are faced with a growing list of patients awaiting transplants for organs that have failed, but there are not enough donors to meet these needs. Countries all over the world have a “human organ shortage” and the waiting lists for organ transplants only seem to grow longer (Melo 427). In the United States 62,000 patients needed a kidney, liver, or pancreatic transplant in the year 2001. Xenotransplantation, which refers to the transplantation of organs, cells, or tissues from animal species into human beings, has been heralded as a promising technology that will help us save more lives and lessen the dire shortage of transplantable organs.

The two main practical issues of xenotransplantation are rejection and zoonosis. However medical advances and developing research have taken significant steps to allay these concerns.