Pigs May Save Thousands of Lives – Part 2
10 Nov 1996
Every eight hours a person waiting for a transplant dies in the U.S. because a human organ is not available. Last week I criticized Christians. The ones who refuse to donate an organ because they believe a person’s body should be intact at burial. I suggested that Ministers remind their congregations that you can still enter the Pearly Gates minus a heart or kidney.
The irony is that the lowly pig who may eventually solve the crisis in organ transplantation.
I recently interviewed Dr. David White at the International Congress on Transplantation held in Barcelona, Spain. Dr. White is the world’s authority on Xenotransplantation, the transplantation of animal organs to other species.
Dr White faced formidable odds. It’s difficult enough for humans to accept another human organ. The body’s immune system destroys a human transplant within hours if the match is unacceptable. And immunosuppressive drugs must be used to combat the rejection reaction.
Since a huge genetic gulf exists between pigs and humans the rejection response is monumental. The transplant a pig’s organ into a human causes it to turn black before the surgeon’s eye’s.
Dr White has solved this dilemma in a unique way. He says the secret is to “humanize” the pig’s heart or kidney. Or as he explains it, “He has “inserted a friendly flag into the pig’s organ.” Consequently when the pig’s organ is transplanted the human immune system accepts it as a friendly organ and doesn’t attack it.
But how do you insert a friendly flag into a pig’s heart? It’s now possible by using molecular engineering techniques. In this procedure human genetic material (DNA) is injected into the pig’s fertilized egg when it’s one cell old.
In effect the human immune system is tricked into believing the pig’s heart is a human heart when it’s transplanted.
But when will the first pig’s organ be transplanted into a human? Dr White believes it could happen in about seven years.
Currently pig’s organs are being transplanted into Cynomolgus monkeys. Pig’s organs that were formerly rejected within a few hours have now lasted in monkeys for two months.
Molecular engineering has solved acute rejection, but not chronic rejection. This can occur months or years later. Now Dr. White is using the same immunosuppressant drugs used in humans such as “Neoral” to fight chronic rejection of the pig’s organ.
But there’s more to Dr White’s dedicated research than molecular engineering. He’s discovered that trying to save human lives is a risky business.
Animal rights activists have tried unsuccessfully to fire-bomb his home. They succeeded in another malicious act when he attended a conference in Europe. They broke the skylight in his roof, pushed in a garden hose and turned it on. It wasn’t discovered for two days and caused considerable damage.
Is Dr. White’s research causing pigs and monkeys undue pain? It appears these animals fare much better than humans.
Dr. White informed me that monkeys had to be destroyed several weeks after being given a pig’s transplant even though the organ was still functioning. Needless to say, I asked why?
The blunt fact is the British Home Office contends that monkeys must not be allowed to suffer. Consequently if they develop something as mild as diarrhea due to immunosuppressant drugs they must be put to sleep.
What absolute irony! This while our own society still refuses to grant the same right to humans riddled with cancer. Or to the victims of Lou Gehrig’s Disease who slowly drown in their own mucus. I often wonder if human madness will ever end.
Some readers may wonder why pigs’ organs? Since baboons are more closely related genetically to humans they would seem to present fewer problems. But there’s a psychological barrier to using baboons.
People get even more upset when an animal closely related to humans is used for experimentation. Besides, they are expensive to breed and are more likely to have diseases that will infect humans.
These problems are not an issue with pigs. We’ve been eating them for hundreds of years. They breed easily, have large litters and their organs are approximately the same size as human organs. And since we’ve been using pigs’ heart valves and pigs’ insulin for years there’s little risk of infection being transmitted to humans.
Possibly Christians need a cerebral bypass operation to get their thoughts right about religion. Thousands will die until pigs’ organs become available while they continue to bury an intact body that is going nowhere. Surely Ministers should remind their congregations of this fact. That since only the soul goes to Heaven our body might just as well be consigned to the city dump or used as fertilizer.
