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Pigs are really common in biomedical testing. They are physically a similar size and weight to humans. They also reach maturity in about 6 months. Much cheaper
by dexwiz 5y ago
Pigs are really common in biomedical testing. They are physically a similar size and weight to humans. They also reach maturity in about 6 months. Much cheaper to raise than primates, and more likely to get approval for testing. My friends in biomed grad school named one of theirs cyber pig because it has about 30 different experiments ran on it before it was killed, and afterwards it was portioned out for further tests.
- polishdude20 5y agoHow do you make sure all those experiments don't interfere with eachother?
- DrAwdeOccarim 5y agoYou can’t really. You test in naive animals when critical, but repeating an experiment or needing a quick binary read-out, you can use non-naive successfully.
- dexwiz 5y agoFrom what I remember most of the experiments where more material based like healing a bone, or replacing a joint, or some sort of implant. So you could have things interfere, but it wasn’t like drug trials which would effect the entire body.
- cpdean 5y agothe image here got so much more visceral now i guess i shouldn't be surprised what a medical experiment is but breaking a pig foot?? ouch
- dexwiz 5y agoOrthopedic surgeons break bones all the time. It sounds cruel, but when done in a medical context, it's not so strange. It was a surgical procedure, it's not like someone dropped a rock on an awake pig.
- cwkoss 5y agoAre pigs used in biomedical testing ever butchered for their meat? Seems like we kill a lot of pigs every year anyways. Would be neat if we could get multiple birds from one stone - for experiments where there isn't a risk of making the meat dangerous at least.
- DrAwdeOccarim 5y agoI doubt it. All disposed of according to hazardous waste rules. Also, large study animals are so important that most tissues and bits are studied during necropsy in close details with retained material kept frozen for years.
- SomeHacker44 5y agoActually, I heard an NPR story over the holidays about a tick borne disease that causes a meat allergy, and how pigs raised for another purpose then became suitable for butchering to eat their meat for people with that disease... So it happens in at least one case.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago“ In 2020 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved genetic modification of pigs so they do not produce alpha-gal sugars. Pigs developed with the trademarked name GalSafe may be able to be eaten safely by people with alpha-gal allergy.[44] They may also produce alpha-gal-safe drugs,[45] and their organs can also be used for xenotransplantation.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy
- mlyle 5y agoWhich, is the exact genetic modification discussed in the article (along with 2 other carbohydrates getting knocked out).
- tptacek 5y agoIt depends! One of my kids is a biochemist wrapping up his degree this semester in a vet-med lab (send job opportunities!). He's done one study with pigs, where they were developing new enteric vaccines. At the conclusion of the study there's nothing wrong with the pigs --- they're just hyper-vaccinated --- but without a place to send them, all they can do is euthanize. He spent a week or two trying to re-home the pigs, but he's at UIUC and there is no pig shortage in the area. You could have taken those pigs for free and ultimately butchered them. Euthanizing research pigs seems especially difficult. I'm really into butchery --- invested in a butcher in the area --- and would happily attend a slaughter. But the circumstances attending euthanizing research pigs are tricky; the pigs are all in a common area, and they're social animals and know something's up when you put one of them down. It messed with the boy.
- TravHatesMe 5y agoBit of a tangent: I read the article to my wife and she mentioned that there is an episode of Grey's Anatomy where they wanted to perform a transplant of a pig's bowels but the Jewish (or Muslim?) lady refused. Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life.
- mizzao 5y agoThat was actually an inaccurate portrayal of Jewish law and Orthodox Jews "condemned the episode": https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ask-the-expert-kosher-pig/ https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ask-the-expert-kosh...
- AmericanChopper 5y agoAll of the “well actually” when it comes to religious laws misses the reality of the situation imo. Well educated religious scholars will debate religious laws and frequently fail to achieve consensus on much. Ordinary religious practitioners will simply adopt whichever interpretation they identify with. There are no truly correct interpretations of any religion, and for any religion there are as many different interpretations of what it means as there are people interpreting it. Even in Judaism, which is really quite homogeneous as far as most religions go.
- JimDabell 5y agoI was once stuck in line in a Subway behind two Muslim men having an argument. One of them was insisting that he couldn’t have turkey ham because eating ham was against his faith, and the other one was trying to explain that ham was forbidden because it was pork and that turkey ham was fine because it wasn’t pork. His mate just kept repeating “it’s still ham though, innit?” There were halal signs up, that wasn’t the problem. A television episode can be an inaccurate portrayal of religious law while still portraying what real religious people actually believe. Not every religious person is smart and well-informed about all the technicalities of their religion.
- spiralx 5y ago
- snek_case 5y agoIf they reach maturity in 6 months only then might it make sense to create humanized pigs (with crucial genes replaced by human DNA) that are cultivated specifically for their organs? Fairly cruel I know, but these pigs would be treated better than pigs cultivated for meat, that's for sure.
- tantalor 5y agoGo read "Oryx and Crake"
- snek_case 5y agoTL;DR ?
- tantalor 5y agoPigs that were genetically engineered to produce organs for human transplants (pigoons) take over the world after a global pandemic (deliberately) kills all people, except a tribe (immune) of genetically engineered primitive humanoids (Crakers) who are peaceful, gentle, and herbivorous.
- Sporktacular 5y agoWeird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.
- sodez117 5y agoUntil scarcity is solved everything is a resource.
- perfmode 5y agothis reads like a line out of a dystopic neal stephenson novel or some or douglas adams quote about a comically primitive species of alien doesn’t it have that sort of ring to it? is existence not more than sets of problems and solutions?
- fartcannon 5y agoI think there was a highly advanced cow/pig thing at the restaurant end the universe who very much wanted people to eat him. Ford wouldn't have considered it wrong as he was pragmatic. And had some alien told Arthur he was a barbarian for eating meat, he would have quipped something back like, "look, it's all shandies and licorice until the locusts arrive and then it's a rather short trip to the butchery to find out whose aunt goes best with brown sauce.' Zaphod though.. he might have seen it your way, "That pig was a cool cat, man." Trillian was pragmatic like Ford. Marvin would definitely been sympathetic on the surface, but insufferably narcissistic underneath. " You think you've got it bad? A brain the size of a planet but they wouldnt eat me if I cooked and served myself with mint jelly. Life. Don't talk to me about life". ... sorry
- notyourwork 5y agoWhat do you propose is the solution?
- Sporktacular 5y ago
- redanddead 5y agoWhat is it about primates that make them expensive?
- idealmedtech 5y agoPrimates typically need to be raised in very large colonies to be healthy, and to be able to take from the colony without damaging it, there need to be many many primates (some colonies are in the hundreds). The Rhesus monkey is a popular one for biomedical testing for a variety of reasons.
- nonameiguess 5y agoSupply? Pigs are both abundant and easily found in the United States. There aren't primate breeding lots. You need to go into a jungle to find them.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoDown voted because this is absolutely not true. No western research facility uses wild primates this way. They are bred in captivity for a number of reasons, both practical, ethical, and environmental.
- bayesian_horse 5y agoYou could breed "primates" in all sorts of numbers if you wanted. Especially the smaller species. Some fit in your hand. That's really not the issue. The issue is that they have very complex social and behavioral demands, and yes, more so than pigs or dogs. It is easy to make a colony of dogs in a laboratory live a very happy life. I've seen it, and I can't see a big difference between a companion dog and a lab dog much of the time. They are just as friendly and outgoing and play all the time. With monkeys that's a lot more difficult... Which is why research in primates is a lot more restricted and more heavily regulated. You need (more) specialized facilities. You also can't handle them as easily because they will bite, poop or hit (the bigger ones) you.
- kaba0 5y agoOther than expenses, they develop much more slowly. As per another commenter a 6 months old pig is practically adult, while it is much longer for most primates.
- the_arun 5y agoI wonder how long will it extend the life of a human after transplanted with Pig's heart. 5 years? Then I guess after every x years, they need new transplant? Though better than death, it is a painful stress.
- chii 5y agoyou recover somewhat, just in time to have another surgery and another lengthy recovery period...not sure whether it is a good life, or a peaceful death is better.
- pharke 5y agoThere's a lot of assumptions going on here. Domesticated pigs can live up to 23 years. We'd also need to know if heart failure is a leading cause of death in pigs, if it's not then the heart could be viable long past that age. There are a lot of completely unknown factors like how a xenotransplant will fare in the host body over a long period of time. That's open ended if there are no rejection issues due to gene editing. Also, the person in the article clearly doesn't share your view on death and there are a large number of people out there that agree with him. Their chance at a longer life shouldn't be curtailed by other people's preconceptions.
- jjtheblunt 5y agotruly disgustingly cruel how humans treat other sentient beings as irrelevant and inanimate. as a species, we kinda are underperforming the compassion we are capable of, except in self serving situations.
- bool3max 5y agoIt's a pig.