3 ms·
HN has an odd fascination for this surgeon's claim, with over 30 posts to it over the last two years, when the surgeon's claims first made the news. https://hn.
by dalke 12y ago
HN has an odd fascination for this surgeon's claim, with over 30 posts to it over the last two years, when the surgeon's claims first made the news. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=head%20transplant&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=head%20transplant&sort=byPopul... .
This proposal is unethical. To show why, consider Christiaan Barnard, who did the first heart transplant.
His first operation failed. So did his next. But his first 50+ attempts were on dogs, and were eventually successful. Only then did he do a heart transplant on a person. (Yes, I find it easier to kill dogs to save the lives of humans than to kill humans for the same reason. Don't mistake that for thinking I find it easy to kill dogs.) That operation was a success, though the patient died 18 days later due to pneumonia as he was taking immunosuppressive drugs.
Where are the dogs with a successful head transplant? Or rats or monkeys or other mammal?
One of the links a couple of years ago was to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5972171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5972171 :
> Jerry Silver, a colleague of White’s [who did monkey head/body transplant experiments in the 1970s] and the neurosurgeon behind the rat spinal cord experiment [where a rat's severed head was reconnected with its own body], objects to the entire notion of a human head/body transplant. “It’s complete fantasy,” he said in an interview with CBS News. Reminiscing about the psychic torture that he believes White’s original monkey patient suffered, he added, “I remember that the head would wake up, the facial expressions looked like terrible pain and confusion and anxiety.” He dismissed Canavero’s theory as “bad science.” Given how controversial the monkey experiment itself was, it’s highly likely that Silver is one of many.
I like jessriedel's comment in the HN discussion from 647 days ago at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5972171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5972171 :
> There are plenty of crazy doctors out there who make nutzo claims not backed up by evidence in their field. One neuroscientist chosen at random is probably reasonable and competent, but a neuroscientist chosen conditional on publishing an astounding claim that isn't shared by any of his colleagues is almost certain to be cray.
- ddorian43 12y agoBy reading the article, looks like the guy is going to die pretty soon ? But they didn't specify where would they find the body (it should be fresh, right?) ?
- jvictor118 12y agoThat's really shocking, if he hasn't already done animal studies -- definitely hadn't realized that. Certainly didn't realize it was legal, even under Russian law, even on a near-death patient. Do you think that his intentions are ignoble? Or do you think he's simply reckless?
- MoistDinosaur 12y agopretty sure this was his first successful dog transplant: http://imaginarycinema.com/images/burton/normal_ma_509.jpg http://imaginarycinema.com/images/burton/normal_ma_509.jpg
- chaosfactor 12y agoThe patient is of sound mind and agrees to the transplant. That makes it ethical.
- dalke 12y agoYou do not understand medical ethics. First, it's more that those two conditions. Modern ethics requires informed consent. If your doctor lies to you to get you to agree to a treatment, then just because you are of sound mind and agree to it doesn't make it ethical. If this doctor says there's a 5% chance of success, and that number is pulled out of his ass, can the patient really make an informed decision? Second, this falls under futile medical care. The chance of survival should this work is well under 1%, and would normally suggest palliative and comfort measures rather than a highly experimental procedure. There is nothing special about this case which makes it outside the normal guidelines. Third, experimental surgery can be warranted even under this case, but only if the knowledge gained is worthwhile and effective. The estimated cost of this surgery is over $10 million. As a straight cost/benefit analysis, the cost to do the same on a mouse or dog is much cheaper, so there can be more experiments, giving better overall information, and provide concrete data used to make a real informed consent.
- chaosfactor 12y agoYou do not understand medical ethics. The worst-case cost to the patient is miniscule relative to the benefits to society.
- dalke 12y agoBollocks. Consider again my point 3. If it takes 100 human surgeries to match the results from 10 animal surgeries, and animal surgeries cost $100K while human surgeries cost $10M then the costs to the patient are irrelevant. No one has established that there is a benefit to society for doing a human head transplant now vs. spending the equivalent amount of money on animal head transplants. All evidence says that this transplant will not work and there won't be any gain from it that we couldn't have gotten cheaper and better in another way. The claims of a single surgeon are not evidence that it might work. Animal tests are evidence that it might work. With your view we end up with things like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. The Declaration of Helsinki - a foundation of modern medical research ethics - rejects your viewpoint. Quoting from https://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/organtransplant.html https://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/organtransplant.html : > 5 Every biomedical research project involving human subjects should be preceded by careful assessment of predictable risks in comparison with foreseeable benefits to the subject or to others. Concern for the interests of the subject must always prevail over the interests of science and society.