Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/21/massachusetts-man-is-first-human-to-get-genetically-modified-pig-kidney-transplant.html
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The procedure is the latest development in a fast-moving race to create genetically modified pigs to provide kidneys, livers, hearts and other organs to help alleviate the shortage of organs for people who need transplants.
Oo make mine a fresh new pork brain! (brrrrains!!! …well for a bit more memory capacity at least)
(deep meta aside: oddsbobs it’s getting harder to find the comment landing associated with a main post these days. actually had to do a text search for ‘kidney’ hurrumph)
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Good for science, I guess. I imagine religious authorities have probably started having some passionate debates on whether this procedure counts as Kosher/Halal or not?
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Well, you aren’t EATING it.
Modern problems call for modern solutions, just create a ritual that cleanses an unclean animal for medial purposes.
Christians do it all the time with communion cleansing the filthiest animal of all.
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Very interested to see how this works out. Know nothing about transplants, but this seems it can be quite impactful for many people.
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Massachusetts man: “Why does my pee smell like bacon?”
But seriously this is great news. I have a relative who is down to one.
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Not sure why this is being brought up?
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If this can be made practical and reproducible, it would be absolutely life-changing for so many people. I can see some ethical arguments being brought up, but honestly, if you are willing to slaughter a pig to eat bacon, same procedure (roughly speaking) to harvest organs should be permissible, right? Beats the hell out of doing a real-life Clonus, doesn’t it?
( Parts: The Clonus Horror - Wikipedia for those unfamiliar)
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I don’t think there will be any barrier to acceptance of these. We’re already using pig tissue in heart valve surgery, this just scales thing up a bit.
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I came for this same hard hitting question.
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If someone finds the idea religiously repugnant they can always refuse the transplant and deal with the consequences, unless they are a minor child. In that case I suspect a court appointed guardian would required to save the kids’ life. People refuse blood transfusions fairly often after all.
I would suggest that anyone who did refuse be pulled from the list of donor organ recipients.
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It’s inside you. You must have eaten it. /s 
Soylent Green contains pork! You fools! Don’t you see? It’s not kosher! It’s not halal! It may contain pork products!
I’m pretty confident that’s a fairly small number of religious sects that have that kind of prohibition… Most people are going to get the life-saving procedure done…
You do know that this is a very new type of procedure here, right? Most transplants are still from humans? I don’t think denying people life-saving care because they might have some reservations is the right call.
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