No miracles for pigs in genetically modified kidney & heart transplants

More than 2,000 years of ethically questionable results continue

BOSTON,  Massachusetts––Possibly not since Jesus allegedly cured two demon-possessed men by casting a legion of demons into a herd of pigs have more people been excited by the prospect of pigs becoming human saviors than in the wake of the March 16,  2024 first-ever transplant of a genetically modified pig’s kidney into kidney disease patient Richard Slayman,  62,  of Weymouth,  Massachusetts.

The story of Jesus casting the demons into the pigs was reported in Matthew 8:28–34;  Mark 5:1-20; and Luke 8:26–39.

That operation,  recalled as a miracle,  killed the pigs but saved the humans.  If the pig’s kidney saves Slayman for long,  his transplant too may be recalled as a miracle,  because so far only Jesus has had much reported success doing anything of the sort.

Recipient of pig’s kidney is so far surviving

The story of Slayman receiving the pig’s kidney transplant was described by,  among many others,  Rob Stein of National Public Radio,  on March 21, 2024,  five days after the actual surgery.

“Slayman,  who is suffering from end-stage kidney disease,  received the organ in a four-hour procedure,  Massachusetts General Hospital announced,”  summarized Stein.  “He is recovering well and is expected to be discharged soon,  the hospital said.”

This was still the prognosis as of March 23,  2024.

“Racing to develop a supply of cloned pigs”

“Several biotech companies are racing to develop a supply of cloned pigs whose DNA has been genetically modified so they won’t be rejected by the human body,  spread pig viruses to people or cause other complications,”  Stein continued.

“The kidney transplanted in Boston,”  Stein explained,  “came from a pig created by eGenesis of Cambridge,  Massachusetts.  The eGenesis pigs are bred with 69 genetic modifications to prepare organs for human transplantation.  The changes protect against a virus known to infect pigs as well as delete pig genes and add human genes to make the organs compatible with people.”

Hogging the limelight

eGenesis,  for the moment,  has hogged the limelight from rival Revivicor Inc.,  the Blacksburg,  Virginia firm that supplied a genetically modified pig’s heart to David Bennett,  57,  who on January 7,  2022 became the first human to receive a heart transplanted from a genetically-modified pig.

Bennett died on March 8,  2022 at the University of Maryland School of Medicine hospital.

(See Hearts out of place: transplants, pigs, chickens, “victories” & McDonald’s.)

Forty years since Baby Fae

No animal-to-human organ recipients have lived long,  healthy lives in the 40 years since Loma Linda University heart surgeon Leonard L. Bailey on October 26,  1984 transplanted a baboon’s heart into Baby Stephanie Fae,  a 12-day-old California infant who was dying of heart failure.

Baby Fae lived 21 days after the transplant.  Bennett lived a record 59 days after receiving the pig’s heart.

Bailey several months later performed one of the first successful human-to-human heart transplants.   The recipient,  Eddie Anguiano,  is reportedly still alive.

But while human-to-human organ transplants have been perfected to the point of becoming almost routine,  the supply of transplantable organs from human donors remains far below demand.

Seventeen deaths per day from lack of transplantable human organs

“More than 103,000 people are currently on the waiting list for organs.  About 17 die every day because they can’t get one,”  Stein reported.

Therefore,  Stein said,  “The field is stirring excitement about harnessing cloning and gene-editing technologies to solve the persistent shortage of organs for human transplantation.

“Surgeons have already transplanted kidneys and livers from genetically modified cloned pigs into baboons and a handful of brain dead people,”  Stein recounted.

“Slayman got a human kidney transplant after being on dialysis for seven years,  according to the hospital,”  Stein said.  “But his transplanted kidney showed signs of failure after about five years, forcing Slayman to resume dialysis last May.  He has since been suffering serious complications.”

“Hyperacute rejection”

Hope that a pig’s heart might save Slayman rose after NYU Langone Health at New York University announced on August 16,  2023 that surgeons there “transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man and for over a month it has worked normally,”  summarized Associated Press science writer Lauran Neergaard.

But on October 31,  2023,  Lawrence Faucette,  58,  the second person to receive a transplanted pig’s heart, died at the University of Maryland School of Medicine,  having survived 41 days before rejection occurred:  18 days less than David Bennett.

“The biggest barrier to using organs from another species,”  explained BBC News after Bennett died,  “is ‘hyperacute rejection.’   The body sees the tissue as so foreign that it starts to kill the donated organ within minutes.

“The hope was the 10 genetic modifications made to the pig meant its organs would be acceptable to the human body,”  BBC News added.

The pig whose heart was transplanted into Faucette underwent even more genetic modification,  but to no avail.

First pig-to-human transplant surgeons went to prison

Bennett,  incidentally,  though the first human to receive a genetically modified pig’s heart,  was not the first human to receive a transplanted pig’s heart.

That distinction went to Purna Saika,  32,  of Sonapur,  Guwahati region,  Assam state,  India,  who lived for seven days after receiving a pig’s heart on January 1,  1997,   from cardiac surgeons Dhani Ram Baruah,  also of Sonapur,  Guwahati region,  Assam state,  India,  and Jonathan Ho Kei-Shing,  of Hong Kong.

Both Baruah and Kei-Shing were arrested under the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994,  which was meant to stop the collection of human organs for resale,  and were imprisoned for 40 days after arguing unsuccessfully that the act should not apply to transplants of organs from animals.

144 years of failure

The history of attempted animal-to-human transplants goes back at least to September 1880,  when a French scientist,  Dassy de Lignères,  allegedly tried to graft the head of newly guillotined child rapist and murderer Louis Menesclou to the body of a large dog.

Russian researchers tried to keep severed dogs  heads alive by mechanical means in 1912.  That inspired Bolshevik medical doctor Mikail Bulgakov to lampoon both his own profession and the scientism of the Soviet state a decade later in Heart Of A Dog,  the first of several satirical works that eventually inspired the dictator Josef Stalin to exile Bulgakov to his 1940 death of deprivation.

What if more than a century of animal-to-human transplant experimentation,  augmented by genetic modification,  does eventually produce transplantable organs?

“More factory farms & more evil uses of our animal cousins”

“This horror will produce more factory farms and more evil uses of our animal cousins in service of human supremacy,  exceptionalism,  and entitlement,”  predicts Jim Mason,  whose 1980 book Animal Factories,   co-authored with Peter Singer and updated in 1990,  introduced contemporary ethical concern for farmed animals.

“Since the ‘products’ (organs) are supposed to save human lives they will,  of course,  be priced accordingly—that is,  exorbitantly expensive,”  Mason added to ANIMALS 24-7.

Supply & demand

Even if all 49,000 U.S. gunshot fatalities per year and all 43,000 U.S. traffic accident fatalities became organ donors,  the supply of healthy ready-to-transplant human organs would still fall short of demand.

Persuading a society in which more than 90% of the population eats meat that pig-to-human transplants are unethical is unlikely to succeed.

But a somewhat more optimistic prognosis than Mason offers might be that if pigs come to be seen as enough like humans that their body parts can save human lives,  perhaps eating pigs might become less palatable to many humans.

Meanwhile,  human demons contributing to organ failures continue to kill pigs,  much as allegedly occurred “in the region of the Gadarenes,”  according to Matthew,  Mark,  and Luke,  circa 2,000 years ago.

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