Should we put animal hearts into people?
By Meera
What is an organ donor and organ transplantation, and why do people do it?
Organ transplantation is a kind of surgery which is done when a person needs an organ replaced and has one put in from someone else. This other person is called a donor. They can either be living (a live donor), or dead (a deceased donor).
Why do people usually need transplants?
Any organ, like your kidney, heart or lungs, can be damaged by a disease eg liver disease caused by alcohol, or injury eg from a car crash, and this can eventually lead to organ failure. Organ failure means that your organs aren’t doing the job they are supposed to be doing, which means that you can get very poorly, and your quality of life can decrease as you have to go to hospital often or take many medications.
The ability to transfer an organ from one person to another person has been one of the biggest medical breakthroughs in the last century. The first transplant was a kidney transplant done in 1954. People who would normally die in a few months are given a second and sometimes third chance with up to 15 added years to their lives with each transplant.
Why start talking about pigs?
Unfortunately, even though there are brilliant surgeons and incredibly brave people ready to undergo surgery to save lives, there is an issue. There are simply not enough organs to go around for everyone that needs one. There is a waiting list for transplants of all organs, and in the UK this list has over 5000 people. In the US, over 114000 people are waiting for an organ.
There are a few solutions to this issue. The first is to do with the ‘Opt-Out’ system donor system. The ‘Opt-Out’ system works in the way that all adults are assumed to have agreed to be organ donors when they die unless they have filled in a form to state they do not want to donate. Everyone in the UK still has the choice whether they want to be an organ donor when they die, but now instead of signing up to be a donor, you have to sign up to NOT be a donor. The thinking is that this will increase the number of organs available for donation.
Only 1 in 3 people die in a way to use their organs for transplantation, however. So how do we bridge the gap between how many organs we have and how many we need?
Have you ever heard of a centaur? In Greek mythology, this was a half-man half-horse creature. Imagine if you could take part of an animal and put it in a human body. Although scientists haven’t been trying to make a real-life version of a centaur, they have trying to take some of the organs we really need from animals and putting them into humans.
This would mean that all the people who need organ transplants would have access to an organ that works. Millions of lives would be saved.
What are the issues with this?
Firstly, your human body has a very strong immune system which fights foreign tissue (in this case, a pig heart) and tries to kill it. This problem happens even when human organs are transplanted, and sometimes it means the patient sadly dies. Scientists have tried to edit the genes of the pig organ to make the immune reaction less severe and have made a lot of progress. This immune reaction is called ‘rejection’, and all people who have transplants have to take medication to prevent this.
Secondly, all species have some viruses that circulate in their populations. If you put a pig heart into a human, you risk introducing a pig virus into the human population, which can be very deadly, and sometimes even cause pandemics.
Thirdly, there are a few moral issues to think about when putting an organ from a pig into a human. If you put special human cells called stem cells (that can grow into any tissue) into pigs, does this mean that the pig could eventually have a human brain? Does this mean that after the transplant the human is part pig? When can you call someone an animal and a human? Most importantly, every person has the right to choose what should happen to their body – every decision should be made with permission (known as consent). If you had no choice other than to have an animal organ transplanted, what would you say?
The need for organs for transplants has never been greater. A possible solution to this could be using animal organs like a pig heart, however this has a range of issues associated. An ‘artificial’ organ manufactured in a lab might be a better option for some people when this is possible.
