Pig kidney works in a donated body for over a month | Hacker News Reader

Pig kidney works in a donated body for over a month

medicalxpress.com

33 pointsPaulHoule12 comments

This is the first significant update I've heard on the subject of genetically-engineered-pig-organs for human transplant since the heart transplant patient died after 2 months.

I agree that transplants should be offered on an experimental basis to patients that are not on the verge of death. I might volunteer for such a study if I am unable to work.

The idea that you want to put yourself in harms way when you are no longer able to work is saddening. There are plenty of other things worth living for.

Meanwhile, working up the list of people in critical condition towards the healthy is a good thing.

>The idea that you want to put yourself in harms way when you are no longer able to work is saddening. There are plenty of other things worth living for.

It is sad, but for countless Americans, the grim reality is that if they can't work, they become homeless very quickly. So in that case, offering themselves as guinea pigs makes perfect sense. They simply don't have the financial resources to enjoy those other things.

I am sure from inside your mental model this feels like a reasonable deduction.

I don't want to get into a mud-wrestling match about facts and figures. But I have to tell you that from the perspective of basically any American, this statement is clownish. You may want to deepen your sophistication on the topic a little.

I agree. OP is using the logic of a Chuck Palahniuk's character.

I think that's overexaggerating his point. If you can't work, you're probably also unable to do a lot of other things you enjoy in life.

Like, as a developer, if I develop a condition that makes me unable to hold down any kind of job in the field, it probably also prevents me from drawing, gaming and reading to the extent that I enjoy doing right now.

As such, I'd probably be more than willing to sign up for a study that might help me be able to get closer to the way I am now, even if I could afford to live without it.

My thought process was that I would want to help others live productive lives.

I found your comment strange when you said that saddened you.

Maybe it was a misreading or something did not come through in a few lines of text.

Have you often sacrificed for others?

Self-sacrifice can be good. It was the reduction of people to just productivity (yours in the original post, their "productive lives" in the most recent) that made me sad. Because while people being productive and proud of what they produce is good and important, I hate to see people only treated as their work output. Especially by themselves.

If the brain dead cadaver suddenly wakes up, that'll be interesting too. ;)

He died of brain cancer.

So "even more interesting" if it happens. :)

> Pig kidney works in a donated body for over a month

The humans are so poisonous that even a pig's liver doesn't last more than a month in a human body. /s

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