I’m not sure how I feel about this. I mean it’s easy to say, ‘oh no I couldn’t do that!’ when it’s not you or a loved one facing death, with all other options closed. But the jury’s still out for me.
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Just saw this myself. Hopefully, he lives a long and happy life. It could open the way for life saving alternatives.
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It certainly could Danny. I wonder how long they’ll wait, monitoring this guy’s progress, before they do another one? Because, as the surgeon said, they have no idea how much time this will buy him - “a day, week, month, year, I don’t know.” It’s a complete step into the unknown.
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I would think a year or more, but that’s just a guess. Me I’m hoping to make it out the way I came in. All original parts!! 
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And I’m not really happy about the genetically modified thing. According to the analysis by the BBC’s Health Editor, These pigs are bred to lack genes that can cause rejection. They are cloned with certain genes “knocked out” and reared until they reach an age where their organs are big enough to be harvested for transplantation.
It just doesn’t sit well with me. We exploit animals for our own benefit far too much already, and the thought of GM farms purely for our transplants is a step too far for me.
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This is brilliant news if the transplant works well. It means we can use pigs organs in people to cure them of all sorts of nasty diseases etc.
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Not sure the pigs would agree with you 
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Reminds me of the movie The Island. Where you were cloned at birth and your clone was there for replacement parts. Me personally. I don’t care where it came from, having something foreign in my body, and have my life depend on it is creepy in the extreme.
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Yes, that’s a bit how I feel Danny, but I guess we can never really know how we’d feel until and unless we’re given the ultimatum: go ahead with the transplant, or die within x weeks/months.
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Oh trust me. In that situation. I’m looking at the doctor asking what are you waiting for pop the hood, excuse me bonnet. Just because I hope I have all original parts at the end doesn’t mean that’s how it will go.
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Well, yes, I think most of us would probably feel the same. Hard, though, isn’t it? To square the desire to stay alive with our sense of right and wrong. I think I’d be spending whatever extra time it gave me campaigning for animal welfare rights!!
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Yes. Self preservation is hard wired. I guess we really never know to what lengths we would go to in that situation until faced with it. It’s easy for us at this moment to take the moral high ground, but would we take that same stance faced with certain mortality. I can honestly say in my case I don’t know what I would do, and God willing I never have to find out.
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Ditto!!
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They’ve been using pig heart valves for years…poor old pig though…
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Funny I never think that when enjoying a BLT.
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What’s a BLT?
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And this is the hammer on the nail really, isn’t it Danny? I mean, if we’re happy carnivores, than why does the idea of animal transplants feel wrong? Probably just need time to adjust to the idea. After all, all those years ago when Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant, there were mixed reactions.
Pauline a BLT is a bacon, lettuce and tomato sarni!
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I think they’ve used animal tissue for a long time to replace heart valves? So only a step further, really?
I get vegetarians having problems with it but I really can’t see much difference in breeding animals for food or breeding them for organs?
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I don’t eat pork, but, I do eat chicken …
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