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Patient dies weeks after kidney transplant from genetically modified pig
- HaZeust 2y agoRest well, Rick. Thank you for your contribution to a historic first in medical treatments
- bozey07 2y ago> The pig kidney was provided by eGenesis of Cambridge, Mass., from a pig donor that was genetically-edited using CRISPR-Cas9 technology to remove harmful pig genes and add certain human genes to improve its compatibility with humans. Additionally, scientists inactivated porcine endogenous retroviruses in the pig donor to eliminate any risk of infection in humans. "donor" seems a little rich. I dislike what precedent this sets in human's "use" of animals.
- drivingmenuts 2y agoWell, the alternative is a dead human, so you might want to think about that. You will probably never need one, so you can think about it without fear. As a potentially dead human, I’m ok with them using animals bred to be donors for this. I’m a Stage IV Kidney Disease patient.
- Atotalnoob 2y agoThese animals also probably live pretty decent lives, since they need to keep the organs in good shape…
- SecurityLagoon 2y agoThis is the same argument used for meat production and is questionable. Would you really care that your murderer treated you well before killing you? Or would you feel even more betrayed? This pig would have lived a very short and probably isolated life (to isolate from pathogens). No matter how well it was treated in life it was still forcibly operated on and/or killed at the end.
- ffsm8 2y agoBut the term "donor" means that it was donated, right? I don't think it should be used in this context either, it should be called something like "organ provider" which gets "harvested".
- iancmceachern 2y agoThe term wasn't new, pulled out of thin air. The term was previously used when describing human donors. They just kept using it because it's as good a euphemism as any.
- ffsm8 2y agoAt least where I live no organs can be taken unless the patient has a donor card/explicitly allows this. This makes it into a donation, not a forceful taking, which is why they're called donors. I don't think animals can opt-in to such a system, as such I'd consider it an incorrect usage of the term.
- iancmceachern 2y agoYes but animals don't speak or care about English, so the term couldn't bother them, it's just you.
- SecurityLagoon 2y agoThat's the same as slurring at someone in a language they don't know. They don't understand what you meant so it doesn't matter right? The point is not the animal's comprehension of the term but the implication that the animal gave consent to have their organs harvested by saying "donor". If you argue that the pig cannot understand English so can't be offended the same applies that they can't understand English so cannot give affirmative consent.
- drivingmenuts 2y agoIn this context, it means "the one who gives". While the general impression is that such giving is voluntary, it's not an absolute requirement of the definition. This is a normal usage of language and not some attempt to wiggle around meaning. If this somehow makes you uncomfortable, you should remember that, if you eat meat, or otherwise consume any sort of animal product, or if you have ever done so, then aforementioned animal was straight up killed, humanely or sometimes inhumanely, to make that product. We domesticate animals to make our lives easier through the usage of their byproducts and this is just one of those usages. Yes, an animal died, but it wasn't killed without reason or justification. We don't live in a Star Trek world where one can wave some sort of device and the person is magically healed. People are working to get there and maybe someday they will succeed, but until then, imperfect means are all we have. It's either that or dead humans. Which do you prefer?
- iancmceachern 2y agoWe have genetically engineered plants and animals to our liking for thousands of years. Take my poodle for example.
- bozey07 2y agoI think we can agree genetically modifying plants is pretty different to genetically modifying animals to harvest their organs. I'd also contend pet breeding is a wildly misguided practice too. Attempting to maintain breed "purity" is at the very least detrimental to their health, but even a pug mutt is clearly not an animal that should exist.
- iancmceachern 2y agoI agree with your science, but tell a pug owner that.
- bozey07 2y agoYeah, fair point.
- goles 2y agohttps://archive.is/XjlhQ https://archive.is/XjlhQ
- sd9 2y ago> The hospital said it had “no indication” his death was related to the transplant. Additionally, the transplant happened in March, which is “weeks ago” but not 2 weeks ago, which is the timeframe I initially assumed from the headline.
- gexla 2y agoAlso, I'm guessing it's not actually the hospital's job to post the more detailed info which may be important related to learning from the transplant. I'm way out of my element here, but wouldn't the hospital just be the location and any important info sharing would be handled by someone else?
- AdamJacobMuller 2y agoTechnically anything (>14 days) could be considered "weeks ago" I was born more than 2000 weeks ago. That bit of the headline is just pointless.
- jraph 2y agoCommonly, you would say weeks when months wouldn't apply, otherwise it would be misleading if not plain wrong. Usually. (such rules aren't set in stone, allowing humor to exist for instance ("I had a child" "Aw! A boy or a girl?" "Yes"); context matters) Mathematically true isn't sufficient (and possibly sometimes not even relevant), "weeks ago" bears more meaning in common language than "there exists N such that N > 2 and N weeks passed". So you were born that many weeks ago, but not really weeks ago. What matters is how things are understood and it's not usually the interpretation of a formal version of the text (or it is, but a complex one that depends on the mood, the culture and the knowledge of the recipient, their understanding of the author, possibly on other factors as well, that most likely doesn't quite match a naive formal translation)
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago> The hospital said it had “no indication that it was the result of his recent transplant.” Sorry, the burden of proof goes backwards. When you are doing something this novel and the patient dies so soon afterwards, the null hypothesis is that it had something to do with the transplant and you have to show evidence that it was not due to the transplant.
- pocketarc 2y agoIt is entirely possible that the hospital knows what happened and why the person died, and are just not sharing it (maybe to respect the family's privacy, for example). Having said that, I do think you're right, the cause of death should absolutely be shared, otherwise it looks quite dodgy. If he was indeed discharged with "one of the cleanest bills of health I’ve had in a long time", then how could he die so shortly after, and why would there not be more discussion around the specifics?
- everforward 2y agoIt’s grim, but he had renal failure requiring an operation in 2018 and then back into renal failure causing congestive heart failure in 2023. It’s very possible for him to have the cleanest bill of health he’s had in 6 months or a couple of years, while still dying. I suspect that unwinding whether his death is related to the transplant or not is non-trivial. He had a few issues that would likely kill him soon. Figuring out which one did, and whether it was caused by the transplant, may be difficult.
- jorlow 2y agoOn the other hand, you have to be pretty sick to qualify for such extremely experimental procedures. And transplants are pretty intensive operations even when someone is otherwise healthy (and getting human organs). It doesn't seem farfetched for unrelated complications to indeed be the cause of death.
- Someone 2y agoIf alternative treatment with decent prognosis exists (in this case Hemodialysis is such an option), to get past the ethics committee, first operations like these typically have to be done on patients on their death bed. That doesn’t make it likely the patients survive a long time. For example, here’s what Wikipedia says this of the first receiver of a heart transplant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Washkansky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Washkansky): “As a result of heart attacks in 1965, approximately only one third of his heart was still functioning. In late October, he went into a diabetic coma, but regained consciousness. Once, when he was swollen with fluid and in considerable pain, his wife Ann asked him in a whisper how he was doing. He managed a smile and whispered, "I'm on top of the world." He was also suffering from kidney and liver failure.” And that’s a case where no good alternative treatment existed, at a time when ethics committees weren’t as stringent as they are today, if they existed at all.
- adamredwoods 2y agoSo he also had congestive heart failure from the previous kidney failure. Also other articles state "type 2 diabetes and hypertension". Dialysis was becoming a burden. He was very brave. A decision like this is immense.
- ceejayoz 2y agoYeah, early trials of something like this will be offered to someone who likely wouldn't benefit all that much from a real human kidney either, so as not to waste it.
- nxobject 2y agoI am reminded of Barney Clark, the recipient of the Jarvik-7 – he lived for 112 days, but brushed up against the limits of his transplanted mechanical heart as time went on and on.
- iancmceachern 2y agoI worked for Dr. Robert Jarvik for my first job out of engineering school. It was an amazing kickoff point for a long career of designing and building medical devices and implants. It's taken me all over the world and I've designed devices for every part of the body. Dr. Jarvik is quite the character.
- zaptheimpaler 2y ago> The hospital said it had “no indication” his death was related to the transplant. I think the transplant team likely did have tons of evidence showing the kidney was fine - monitoring things heavily is just normal procedure after any transplant, even more so after this kind of transplant. He would have had daily or weekly labs showing Creatinine/eGFR, ultrasounds, blood tests, urine tests, regular appointments talking about symptoms and lots more. Its possible that the pig kidney caused the death in some way that isn't clearly understood yet though. Maybe some proteins in the kidney went into the bloodstream and affected another organ, maybe they exacerbate congested blood vessels somehow etc. Maybe an autopsy will reveal more. But yeah if you read the history of transplants or any risky new medical procedure, they are very fragile and can be set back decades or stopped when they go bad or mistakes are made. There are incentives for people to cover up the reason's things failed and history of hospitals lying out of their teeth to cover their asses (see Charles Cullen in The Good Nurse). I guess I'm saying there is plenty of evidence on both sides of the answer to the question of "why did he die".. either way he did something heroic.
- Laaas 2y ago“Patient given modified pig kidney dies two months later” would be more apt. Very editorialized title.
- downrightmike 2y ago[flagged]
- maerF0x0 2y ago“Patient dies of congestive heart failure, not due to pig kidney transplant” Also would be more apt.
- dyauspitr 2y agoThat would be misleading too in the other direction, we don’t know if it played a role. “Patient given modified pig kidney dies two months later, cause not confirmed to be kidney” or something along those lines would be the best headline.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y agoBoth your headline and OPs would not have met the first requirement for a headline, which is to draw the reader in so they have to read the article to get the whole picture. Sadly, the article's headline does just that.
- deprecative 2y agoTheir headline(s) made it seem like there may be some form of investigation going on in the article which makes me want to read the article. The SEO/click bait headline pushed me away. I get that I'm just me but there must be several if not tens of people like me.
- mrybczyn 2y ago"Patient sick enough to need a kidney transplant, dies"
- 0xedd 2y ago[flagged]
- maerF0x0 2y agoFirst of all.. RIP Pioneer. Thank you for your service to humanity. > The hospital said it had “no indication that it was the result of his recent transplant.” A major issue, at least in Canada, is that the system will let you get too sick to recover before helping you. There are times when a healthy person enters the queue, and doesn't get fast-tracked / called upon until their health begins to fail severely.
- morkalork 2y agoThe cases in Canada are mind bogglingly frustrating, such as a woman ending up with an amputation after getting extreme bed sores while in care. If you think rugular movement and care from nurses to prevent that was too expensive, how does that compare to a whole operation and following recovery? Talk about penny wise and pound foolish.
- sealeck 2y agoThis is an extremely general problem which I think comes down to temporal biases in the human mind and a kind of survivorship bias.
- DontchaKnowit 2y agoHuh? What do you mean by that. The problem is poor healthcare...
- worik 2y ago> The problem is poor healthcare Yes. But most healthcare is terrific and supplied by dedicated professionals working in systems and institutions of variable quality. But the bad outcomes are what we notice. If it bleeds it leads
- olalonde 2y agoSomeone recently died because of this: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/quadriplegic-quebec-man-chooses-assisted-080000543.html https://ca.news.yahoo.com/quadriplegic-quebec-man-chooses-as...