First Pig Kidney Transplant Patient Goes Home
Potentially good news for the nearly 100,000 Americans on the transplant waiting list.
Two weeks ago, surgeons from Massachusetts General Hospital for the first time ever transplanted a kidney from a specially genetically modified pig into a living kidney-failure patient, Rick Slayman. Researchers had earlier tested the safety and efficacy of modified pig kidneys in brain-dead patients. Now, the xenotransplant has been so successful that Slayman has been released to go home.
The human-compatible kidney was provided by biotech company eGenesis which used CRISPR gene-editing technology to knock out three porcine genes that would otherwise provoke immunological rejection, add seven human genes to reduce inflammation and rejection, and inactivate porcine retroviruses that might infect a patient.
Although some animal rights activists object to killing animals for transplant organs, New York University bioethicist Arthur Caplan has observed, "If you're interested in animal rights, you're probably better off turning toward trying to change behavior at breakfast than you are trying to change behavior about organ transplants." Keep in mind that around 125 million hogs are slaughtered for food annually in the U.S., so good luck with changing either.
In 1995, Cambridge University transplant surgeon Roy Calne suggested that xenotransplantation "is just around the corner, but it may be a very long corner." The preliminary success of Slayman's transplant suggests that scientists and physicians may, at long last, be about to round that corner. That would be really good news for the nearly 100,000 Americans who are on the waiting list for kidney transplants.
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Why is 25% of this piece devoted to arguing with PETA?
PETA is the only real hurdle to this procedure. Well, them and the rest of the Humans Suck and Animals Rule wackaloons like vegans and anti agriculture types.
This is great news. I waited on dialysis for 6 years for a human kidney to come up for me. 6 years while my son was going through middle and high school. A pig kidney would have been amazing if it were available.
Cojgratulations on getting the kidney and for making it this long.
My Sister recently got a kidney and I got over rhabdomyolysis last year. Kidney health is a big deal for me and I shop with and donate often to Value Thrift, who supports National Kidney Services as it’s beneficiary.
This story is near and dear to my heart, mind, and the rest of my innards. And it’s a story that should be praised by all who want to go on healthily for one more day or forever!
Thank you. The kidney is about a billion times better than being on dialysis.
Not to be rude but is it a genetic thing with your family? Mine is. Polycycstic Kidney Disorder. About half my cousins have had it, my father grandfather and uncle on his side all had it. We have had a lot of in family donations of kidneys. A good number of us are either walking around with one kidney or three. We’ve also produced more than the average number of nurses from my generation of cousins and I’ve actually ran into one who was working the dialysis unit I had to transfer to for a few sessions.
Not rude at all. I don’t know if it’s genetic, but I’m not taking any chances.
I support Kidney charities all the way and support all attempts within the bounds of the Libertarian NAP/NIFF to make organ transplants easier and cheaper.
And this is part of my even broader support for Extropian/Transhuman/Singularitarian thoughts and practices for Life and Health Extension.
My own rhabdo came from a bad reaction to Statins, but my Doctor switched my meds and I am much better.
That’s impressive. I wish I had the finances to do like you but unfortunately after the transplant it’s hard to do much on a regular basis so I’m a recipient of charity. I cleaned the basement on Wednessday and I’m still recovering from the effort. Mind you when on dialysis I couldn’t even manage to do that, so there is improvement.
Medications can be weird like that. I can’t take ACE inhibitor blood pressure meds without getting a dry hacking cough. My wife is fine on them.
I knew a guy from dialysis whose kidney crapped out because his doctor screwed up a medication dose while he was in the hospital. Guy was easy going about it and didn’t sue. I don’t know that I’d have been so nice.
Congratulations! There is still SOME real science being done in the world.
This is great news. Hopefully it all works out.
I very much agree. A great many obstacles have been overcome, the surgical technique, rejection of the new organ, it seems the limiting factor is organ supply and solution to that problem may be these pig kidney’s.
A new understanding of “Long pig”?
I’d like to go long on the long pig! Twat shall I infest in, twat barbeque sauce should I use, and is a good culinary choice here, with fava beans and a nice Chianti?
I don’t think that this is going to outweigh the recent really terrible news for kidney patients of all types:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/equity-over-accuracy-in-kidney-care
Since black patients typically have higher serum creatinine concentrations than nonblacks with the same kidney function, the formula had applied an adjustment for black patients to ensure a more precise GFR estimate.
*snip
The task force decided to nix the racial adjustment and set to work choosing a new formula that would not take race into account, which it released in 2021.
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Blacks were being penalized in the rankings to adjust for genetic differences in the testing protocol. Now they are not being penalized and everybody is being tested as if they are the same … leading to Blacks being over-scored. This is the opposite of DEI . I’m not sure which outcome you want people to be outraged about. ???
Its bad news for both groups of people and everyone in-between, to not take natural genetic differences into any account.
You’re potentially mis-diagnosing a black person as having end-stage kidney disease, when in fact they are perfectly healthy, AND you are probably not giving very sick people on the other end of the scale the much needed medical care that they require. Everybody loses.
This is the opposite of DEI
This is the “anti-racism is the opposite of racism” idiocy. No, not every conditional in all of consciousness is strictly binary and to force it as such specifically makes conscious systems more stupid. Further, even if every one were binary, neither true nor false is the default. It’s true and/or false, not true and whatever the opposite of true.
The genes and creatinine don’t know skin color and still give black people more serum creatinine and asians less, is that diverse, equitable, and inclusive or not?
JFC, do people tie your shoes for you or are they velcro?
When we each have our own vat-grown “body shop” of both human and xeno spare parts all advertised on a sign and cheap enough to get with a debit card, all the Race Hustlers, Single-Payer Socialists, and “Creation Science” Anti-Evolutionists will be out of business!
Please. All of you. Just. Stop. Now.
ah City Journal, the most unbiased news source lmfao
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10103103/
Doom.. doom… doom… doom… doom…
Can’t we have good news once in a while?
Was it coincidence that they experimented with a black guy?
Also, why are the doctors all white and Asian?
A “black” guy who was very willing and now as able-bodied as any other healthy person.
And “white” and Asian Doctors who now have their work cut out for themselves.
Winner!-Winner!-Winner! Barbecue Pork Dinner!
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Can you still make and eat the bacon from the modified pig?
Well, if the CRISPR-ing only applied to the kidney, it wouldn’t affect the rest of the pig. Even if the CRISPR-ing affected the whole swine, it’s an open question whether it affects the taste.
Only one way to find out…And what better way to celebrate a new life than a pig-pickin’, right?
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All I ask, is that our tax funds STOP going towards humping pigskin, unless human titty-skin is treated at least equally!!! Sports stadiums, and shit, is twat I’m talking about…
$Bazzilions of tax dollars for stadiums for ritualized violence, and we the taxpayers are forced to pay it… Baseball, football, etc.; they are all ritualized violence…
Can we just spare a bare few million for ritualized sex, too, at the local naked-titty-dancing club? A little CHOICE here, please?
Ritualized sex is FAR less likely to result in cracked ribs & broken spines & damaged brains than football (which we pay for through health insurance), BUTT, NOOOO, no tax dollars for ritualized sex… Tax dollars to SHUT HER DOWN!
How do we start a movement, Free the Naked Titties-Skin, Just Say NO to Pigskin?!
#FreeTheNakedTitties
#HumpHumanTittiesNotPigskin
The NFL can pay for their own damn show-boat!
And you can pay for your own damn motor-boat!
Never cooked a kidney in a crisper. Broasting really brings out the subtle flavors.
Nothing subtle about the taste of kidneys. That is an in your face taste.
Nasty taste.
I’m guessing that while this is true, with current GMO rules they throw it away.
I’m curious if they can manage to get 2 transplants per pig in the future, as this was just a test.
I will be super impressed if they can add an additional split or two in the cell division process to make a pig with 4 or 8 kidneys.
I’m guessing that while this is true, with current GMO rules they throw it away.
This is a bit backwards or out of date. More likely that it will be killed when every hospital in CA will have to open up it’s own farrowing barn and every pig will have to be given a 2,000+ sq. ft. home and $1,500 per week in spending money.
That aside, much like veggies and, despite overly-optimistic futurist libertarian’s knee jerks, it’s a case-by-case basis. That is, there are several genetically modified animals that can be marketed and pigs are among them. Obviously, if you genetically engineer a pig to produce botulinum toxin (I have no idea if pigs are immune or not), on purpose or on accident, you aren’t going to be able to market that for human consumption but, barring something that, there’s no reason to assume that they wouldn’t just sell off the rest of the pig.
Even without the selling off of the rest of the carcass, the assumption that you could engineer one pig to grow four kidneys faster/easier/cheaper/more reliably than you could just raise two pigs is exceedingly presumptuous.
It’s the Asian patriarchy. They control the kidney market.
That is a road of lubbish and clap flom ulban regend.
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Is this Halal? Asking for a Muslim friend with kidney trouble.
Dianne? Is that you?
Anybody with jack and/or insurance who wants to participate in the Medicine of Modernity has a rght to do so. Whether this person lets superstition hold them back and kill them is that person’s choice.
I’ll try a pig kidney but only with lots of hot sauce. But seriously, if healthy people could just auction off a kidney would we be having this conversation?
We could have a choice of both. When one is in short supply, the other could compensate. So there would be no more hogging the waiting lists.
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The kind of people who would be willing to sell organs are likely the kind of people whose organs aren’t in the greatest shape. Kidneys might be ok, but their livers are likely to be a whole bucket of ugly.
What we need is a free trade agreement with China for Urghur kidneys. Of course Trump would slap on a tariff if elected and cost the average family fifteen hundred bucks.
1500 bucks is a drop in the bucket compared to what it costs to put a person on dialysis. Only Medicare is willing to pay for dialysis.
We would also have to keep the pigs away from booze, lest they end up with pickled livermush. That might be a delacacy for some in The Tarheel State, but not good for patients.
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He was sent home with a prescription to stop eating bacon as it is now considered cannibalism.
Science: We invented the fake kidney! Lifesaving! Cheap! Abundant!
Elizabeth Nolan Brown: I can still murder as many violinists that I attached myself to as I want, right?
Casually Mad is a fucking liar ass usual! “That I have attached myself to” is VASTLY different than “being KIDNAPPED and attached to”!!! Do you not think people will perhaps READ your links, and see HOW huge of a stinking LIAR you are?
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.[4]
You do know that the “violinist” could just as easily be a serial murderer, right?
Goodbye, Cruel World! Kick me out, Reason, whenever you’re ready!
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