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Man given genetically modified pig heart dies
- melling 5y ago“Currently 17 people die every day in the US waiting for a transplant, with more than 100,000 reportedly on the waiting list.” David Bennett was only 57. Heart disease, and related issues are a big problem. While I’m hopeful for this technology, I wish there was a way for people to see heart issues coming much earlier in life so they can attempt to treat, or delay, the problem.
- dt3ft 5y agoOr, change the way they live, work less and enjoy what little life they have ahead?
- idontknowifican 5y agoyour view indicates a lack of empathy for folks that live differently than you
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bob66 5y ago
- DiffEq 5y agoI don't mean to be callous by this comment but if you mean "live differently" as living unhealthy well I have a problem with this. People that live in unhealthy ways cause all sorts of grief to others as well as financial loss. It is not right that I have to pay for people that decide to essentially eat themselves to death; it is not right that my wife and I had to care for my mother for months because she decided to eat herself to death. Heart disease and diabetes are all too common "paid" for by others - they should choose differently and while we can't make them choose differently we should for sure tell them that their choices are not "o.k.".
- ejb999 5y agoI agree - people need to be able to be called out when they are making bad decisions - especially w/regards to their health, and they especially should be called out by their health care providers - many doctors these days won't even broach the subject of a patient's weight, for fear of offending them - and I have seen patients file formal complaints against doctors when the doctor notes in their chart that the patient 'is obese'. It is right to tell them they are obese and it is right to encourage people to live healthier - how can you be a health care provider and not be allowed to call out people who are eating themselves to death?
- mulmen 5y agoLiving is unhealthy. It’s universally fatal. In a free society we (should) retain autonomy over our bodies. This isn’t purely philosophical, it is practical. Who decides what is healthy? What if they are wrong? How many eggs should I eat today to meet your personal definition of healthy living? And what do I do when it differs from someone else?
- mrmuagi 5y ago> Living is unhealthy. Tips fedora. In all seriousness, I think there's obvious medical definitions for unhealthy in regards to addictions, weight, etc. Let's not philosophize some libertarian defense of something that obviously restricts and constricts one's freedom -- the ability to move an inch without your joints buckling. I can sympathise with you if you have suffered from anti-fat bullying and adopt defensive attitudes in reaction -- but what the hell am I reading.
- kelnos 5y agoThis is kinda an extremist straw man, though. I don't think anyone is claiming that the fields of nutrition and physical fitness are settled and that we know everything about what people need to do to be healthy. But if you're obese and eat junk food all day, or if you just sit around on your couch and never get any exercise, and then end up with (for example) heart disease, that is something that was likely preventable, and we have a pretty good idea why and what could have been done differently. I'm force to subsidize these people's health care to some extent, and I think that's unfair. The whole autonomy thing is tricky. We live in a society where we "care" for each other in collective ways (taxes etc.). People who want to live in that society lose some autonomy as a part of the bargain. I don't think this means we should legally force people not to eat or drink certain things. But I do think that (for example) denying people liver transplants when they won't stop drinking excess amounts of alcohol is fine. They can have their autonomy, but then they have to live with the consequences of their choices.
- lostlogin 5y agoHow would you apply this to a child, or convey it to their parents? The procedure has a profound effect on the family that receives the heart and on the donor family. Hearing donor family members describe what it’s like knowing their child’s heart is still beating somewhere is something you don’t forget.
- hombre_fatal 5y agoWell, we certainly do set up people for [heart] failure in our culture. Standard American diet is atrocious and I often day-dream about what it might take to transition to a culture around healthy, whole foods. It's hard to imagine. And looking at the westernizing diet of the rest of the world, maybe that's a ship that never sails back. Maybe tech breakthroughs are the only hope we have if major cultural reform around health and food never arrives.
- tommoor 5y agoTo everyone that reads this: If you've not had a checkup in the last year go and get one! It'll be included on your health insurance and the blood draw will include things like if you have high cholesterol.
- rmellow 5y agoIn the US I presume? Canadians have a harder time... In Canada/Ontario, you have to convince your doctor to give you a cholesterol test, e.g. family history. It won't be done preventively [1]. Even if you manage to get tested, if you're under 40 the doctor won't care and there will be no followup. [1] https://exechealth.ca/ontario-drops-annual-physicals/ https://exechealth.ca/ontario-drops-annual-physicals/
- testesttest 5y agoA test in the US < $50 and is easy to schedule without having a doctor involved at LabCore or similar. Is that an option in CA?
- rmellow 5y agoThere are private clinics one can become a member of, but this is extremely uncommon and most people don't know it's an option. Costs upwards of $3,000 annually.
- foota 5y agoOnly 3,000? chuckles in American
- xeromal 5y agoYou can go to quest diagnostics or labscorb and order yourself a test for under 200$ (no insurance needed) that would do an entire panel on you. I did this and then called a teledoc for like 40$ (copay) and had them go over hte results with me. It's pretty sweet.
- fredsmith219 5y agoHaving trouble taking satisfactory breaths while laying flat? See a doctor. Feeling out of breath abnormally while working out? See a doctor. Got an Apple Watch? Just for kicks take your ekg. It is crude but can detect abnormal heart rhythms.
- MPSimmons 5y agoYou probably know this, but for anyone else reading - I have an Apple watch that has the EKG. It is a two-contact EKG, so it's limited in what it can see. It also requires you to actively look at it (you have to touch the crown while it's reading). It did successfully diagnose a bout of bigeminy that I had, but unfortunately my cardiologist didn't think it was important, and I ended up having a heart attack anyway. But I lived, and now I have a new cardiologist, so there's that.
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoIsn't that something that you could sue for?
- als0 5y agoI do wonder how it must feel to be a doctor who is one bad call away from being sued or revoked.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kyleee 5y agowhat's the alternative in practice; having no recourse if a negligent doctor maims or kills you?
- kelnos 5y agoThere's a big difference between negligence and making a good-faith decision based on training and experience that later turns out to be wrong. Actual negligence should, of course, absolutely be punished.
- johnmarcus 5y agoI wish the effect smoking has on the heart was advertised more. People are terrified of cancer and that's all they think about with smoking, but actually far more people die from heart and stroke related illness after smoking than from cancer. I don't know the exact number, but it's a multitude.
- iancmceachern 5y agoIs it an effect if the nicotine?
- Supermancho 5y agoHe lasted 2 months. For reference, artificial hearts generally do 130 days - (2018) https://syncardia.com/patients/media/blog/2018/08/seven-things-about-artificial-hearts/ https://syncardia.com/patients/media/blog/2018/08/seven-thin... with some notable outliers that live for years, and human to human transplant is about 9 years. Usually it's some related systemic problem that kills you under these conditions eg consistent brain clotting causing stroke or organ failure due to drug cocktails.
- ryeights 5y agoWow, that's not great. I take it these are meant to be used as a stopgap before an actual transplant?
- Stevvo 5y agoYea; it's a stopgap solution. The pump is in a backpack so it's not perfect for mobility.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hwillis 5y agoLVADs are implanted in your chest. Blood doesn't leave your body, but do they have external batteries. You have a wire coming out of your chest (or neck/head, sometimes) which is a constant infection worry. AFAIK the only external pumps are like, countertop kind of things. They're ideally a stopgap, but even still it's typically a massive change in quality of life. The left ventricle is what feeds your entire body blood; the right ventricle only feeds the lungs. When the left ventricle fails, blood backs up and starts overflowing into the lung space. It's exceptionally unpleasant. The right ventricle is usually in much better shape so an LVAD can be almost like having a functioning transplant except for the risk of infection.
- slowhand09 5y agoMy friend was a member of the transplant team at Johns Hopkins. "They" said he was near multiple organ failure prior to the transplant. And he survived significantly longer than expected. Recovery under those circumstances was a very long shot already. Kudos to him for undergoing the procedure, and furthering the research. Condolences to he and his family.
- heyoni 5y agoWhich is probably how they got approval to do a pig heart transplant in the first place since he would never get on the transplant list.
- bradly 5y agoI have an uncle in his sixties that has drank and smoked his whole life and he has been on heart and liver transplant list for about a year. Because he continued to live unhealthily his heart started failing this week with multiple heart attacks they moved him to level one priority and he will likely get his transplants this week. It feels weird that he is now ahead of others because they tried to be healthy and he did not. Similarly a friend work for Alabamas football program and he couldn’t travel with the team to games in 2020 because he _hadn’t_ had Covid, while those who had gotten Covid could travel. Basically… it’s hard to formulate rules for these sort of things and rarely are they “fair” to all involved.
- judge2020 5y agoI thought that hospitals specifically only put you on the list if you committed to a healthy lifestyle.
- MathCodeLove 5y agoIt likely varies hospital to hospital and region to region. I would hope it's more often the case than not though. I'm an organ donor and I wouldn't be happy to find out that my liver went to an alcoholic that wasn't making a strong effort at sobriety.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
- thehappypm 5y ago
- dang 5y agoPlease don't break the site guidelines, regardless of how wrong another comment is or you feel it is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 5y agoRelated: US man who got first pig heart transplant dies after 2 months - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30615375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30615375 - March 2022 (3 comments) Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30080472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30080472 - Jan 2022 (490 comments) The doctor behind the first pig-to-human heart transplant - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30044630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30044630 - Jan 2022 (3 comments) In a First, Man Receives a Heart from a Genetically Altered Pig - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29900921 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29900921 - Jan 2022 (2 comments) U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29882912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29882912 - Jan 2022 (701 comments)
- ceejayoz 5y agoSimilarly, the first human heart transplant patient only lasted 18 days. It's proof of concept, not the final iteration.
- jjtheblunt 5y agothis is sad. it's kind of bizarre from a mile high view, but all so normal too, that no one comments on the sacrifice of a pig, i found myself observing.
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoI would also be happy to go vegan, but I don't see a way to be healthy that way, so..
- ben_w 5y agoIf it’s specifically pigs up for discussion, vegan and vegetarian are the same, and vegetarian is easier — I’m vegetarian, and AFAIK there’s no food made from pig’s milk (certainly nothing I’ve seen in the local supermarket). But as for healthy? That’s the easy part, there are so many healthy vegan options it’s silly. Food cravings however, that’s hard (and also why I’m only vegetarian, not vegan — I’m looking forward to improvements to vegan cheese[0] in particular given everything else on sale around here now has good enough non-dairy alternatives — though the other part is that I’m not hugely concerned about the ethics of free-range no-kill eggs). [0] smoked tofu slices is good for sandwiches, but it doesn’t melt nicely on pasta
- xoxxala 5y agoI tried vegetarian for a year and it was hard (this was 30+ years ago, and so much has improved!), but my current flexitarian diet is easy to maintain and a healthy option.
- benatkin 5y agoHave you tried being vegan for a month? I thought I felt worse after it, but that was several years ago and I think I should give it another shot. I'm sure you have your reasons for thinking that.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoPescatarian?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jll29 5y agoMay he rest in peace - he had some additional happy days from what it looks like, and he helped science advance a bit, kudos to him. What worried me was when I read he was "not eligible" to be a recipient of a human heart; I hope this is not just because he had a bad (or no) insurance.
- conroydave 5y agotop comment currently references he was near multiple organ failure prior to the transplant.
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoHopefully he had the opportunity to get out from the hospital in the meantime.
- thechao 5y agoHe refused vaccination. Also, not the greatest human; but, he served his time, so I don't think that had an impact.
- zerocrates 5y agoMy recollection is that his general health was quite poor and he also had a documented history of not following doctors' orders. Of course it's also probably not unrelated that he paralyzed someone for life in a stabbing attack many years ago, but I believe the official story at least was that this didn't enter into the calculus.
- vkou 5y agoIf you're not likely to survive very long with an organ transplant, you're not going to get one. Organs don't grow on trees. Underlying medical conditions, refusal to follow medical orders, an unhealthy lifestyle (smoking, alcoholism, drug abuse) are all reasons to pass you over for someone more likely to survive with a transplant. Medical resources aren't infinite, even when money isn't an issue.
- shadowgovt 5y ago> Exactly what has happened since and the precise cause of Mr Bennett's death is not clear. Which is the most useful information (next to the actual end of a human life here). Did he die because the heart was ultimately rejected, or did he die from underlying complications that had made him ineligible for a human heart transplant in the first place? If the latter, I'd still call this whole story a significant success and a possible step on the road to providing more transplants for people worldwide who won't survive without a new heart.
- mateo1 5y agoYeah, I hate the clickbaity choice of putting this information near the end of the article. This is bbc, I expect better.
- notadoc 5y agoPorcine biologics have generally underperformed expectations, often with neutral clinical effectiveness.
- martini333 5y agoSure. Everybody dies. He also lived way longer than expected with the big heart.
- willis936 5y agohttps://apnews.com/article/pig-heart-transplant-patient-dies-bc3b304de3c8d3bf3acbb3c221960ecf https://apnews.com/article/pig-heart-transplant-patient-dies... >Bennett’s doctors said he had heart failure and an irregular heartbeat, plus a history of not complying with medical instructions. >Patients may see Bennett’s death as suggesting a short life-expectancy from xenotransplantation, but the experience of one desperately ill person cannot predict how well this procedure ultimately will work, said ethics expert Karen Maschke of The Hastings Center. That will require careful studies of multiple patients with similar medical histories.
- krallja 5y agoMan Given Genetically Modified Pig Heart Survives Two Months
- pingsl 5y agoPeople die some day because of some disease. This is natural. Give people a heart from other species, this is unnatural. I'd rather transform my brain and thoughts into a robot.
- thehappypm 5y agoComputers are unnatural too pa
- jart 5y agoThe most most interesting part of this story is they needed to delete the porcine endogenous retroviruses from the pig dna before the heart could be transplanted since that can infect humans. Next step is to use Crispr to kosher bacon.
- Konsistency 5y ago
- LadyCailin 5y agoSo if killing a pig would save your life, we should just leave you be? Got it.
- brigandish 5y ago
- dymk 5y agoDid you just equate black people to pigs?
- brigandish 5y ago
- 999900000999 5y agoStupid question ? Could they actually enhance the heart to be 10x stronger than a normal human. Giving the recipient superpowers. I'm imagining the movie now BearMan, of course, we're still in the early stages, but I can imagine in 50 or 60 years being able to pick out all types of super enhanced implants. All jokes aside, this man is a hero for trying such a crazy experiment, may he be the first but not the last. If this technology is perfected, no one will ever die waiting for a transplant again.
- treyfitty 5y agoNot that it should detract from the main story, but the man who received the heart isn’t a hero at all… he stabbed a man multiple times leaving him paralyzed to die a slow death. Better to reserve the title “hero” to someone more deserving. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60010155.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60010155.amp
- thehappypm 5y agoHis contribution to science is his penance.
- brigandish 5y agoIt's hardly penance to be given the chance to live longer.
- dymk 5y agoYou seem to be missing the point - his repayment to society was being the guinea pig for a medical experiment, which would have been unethical to do on somebody in nearly any other circumstance.
- brigandish 5y agoAnother comment points out that his crime was not taken into account, only the fact that he had no other medical procedures as options due to his ill health and history of not following doctor's orders. So what's the point I missed?
- haxorito 5y agoCondolences to his family and friends. Man was hero, his action to undergo experimental treatment going to help the researchers.
- godmode2019 5y agoIf you genetically engineer a pig to more like a human. When does it stop being a pig and start being a human and given the rights of a person If you genetically engineer a human to be more like a pig, at what point does it stop being a human. I see a future where genetically modified humans grown in tanks raised for their organs, different enough were they are not legally classes as humans and you can farm them.
- silent_cal 5y agoI find this whole story really disturbing.