|
|
 |
Farmers raise pigs for profit. We eat pork, we wear pigskin shoes, carry pigskin purses. Here's a new market. Doctors raising pigs to be organ donors, to solve a critical shortage for transplants. [Dr. Alan Langnas/ UNMC Chief Transplant Surgeon] "We'd have farms of these animals, potential donors if something were to occur, a phone call would take place, and the organs would be harvested. Will it happen soon enough for Barbara Woodman? Her wait for a liver transplant seems endless. [Barbara Woodman/ Awaiting Liver Transplant] "It's hard on the family. I think I've got over my angry stage, my feel sorry stage, now it's just why so long?" Five years ago, she was diagnosed with liver disease and put on the transplant list. [Woodman] "From day one, they said that's the only chance you have." There are more than 74,000 people like Barbara waiting for transplants in the United States. Every day, fourteen more people are added to the list, 12 die waiting. Barbara has to wait because there aren't enough organ donors. Last year, just 58-hundred. Why note more? [Langnas] "A lot of it is based on superstition, misconceptions and other things that prevent people from agreeing to organ donation." Dr. Alan Langnas is the chief transplant surgeon at UNMC. [Langnas] "In reality, even if all the 15,000 potential donors in the U.S. were used, we still would not be serving the number of people who would benefit from organ transplantation." And despite campaigns to encourage organ donation, he doesn't think the number of donors will grow. At UNMC, the goal is to grow human-like organs in pigs and transplant them without risk of disease and rejection. Patients might then have a choice. A human donor, which might be rejected, or a pig donor that would not. Dr. Bill Beschorner leads the research team. [Dr. Bill Beschorner/ UNMC Xenotransplant Researcher] "Some patients may prefer a pig donor, if the option is to get a pig organ without any immune suppression or a human organ, which you're chronically immune suppressed for the rest of your life. The former may be preferable to some patients. [Marcie Weiner/ Liver Transplant Recipient] "It would be a hard choice, but I guess having just recently been through it I think if you could choose transplant earlier, for me it's really difficult to look in the mirror and see yourself deteriorating and wait, knowing that some other family's tragedy is what's going to present an option for you. And if you choose xenotransplant, you wouldn't have to deteriorate to that point." Marcy Weiner had a liver transplant four weeks ago. She comes back to UNMC every day for physical therapy, and she takes 30 pills a day so the new liver won't be rejected. Here's how a xenotransplant would work:
[Weiner] "The first transplants we do in humans will probably be kidneys or hearts. They would have to be very ill, they would have a limited possibility of getting a human transplant." The FDA regulates this research and has guidelines to protect patients if and when xenotransplants begin:
A new federal advisory panel meets this month to review current xeno research, and the medical, economic and ethical issues. Panel members will include doctors, veterinarians, scientists and a single opponent of xenotransplant research, Alan Berger, executive director of the Animal Protection Institute. [Alan Berger/ Execuitvie Director Animal Protection Institute] "There's a real moral, ethical issue here. Do we want to create a genetically altered species? Remember we're creating an animal that's genetically altered slightly to be closer to humans. Do we want that species to be a container for spare parts that can be used by humans?" Even if a xenotransplant could save Barbara Woodman, Berger things the risk to publi8c health is too great to help just a few. [Berger] "The biggest problem that xenotransplantation really offers is the potential for a catastrophic infectious disease that's transmitted from animal to human and then to other humans. It isn't the case of just one person getting a transplanted animal organ and getting a disease and dying. It's the fact that it could spread into the general public." [Beschorner] "I have no problem raising pigs for the sake of saving a human life. Pigs are very, very clean and can be raised in very, very clean conditions. And the risk of infection can be virtually eliminated." Research will be expensive; some estimate 50-100 million dollars. A federal grant pays for part of the UNMC research. Dr. Beschorner will also recruit donors to invest in his biotech company. Berger thinks the money is better spent on basic medical care that helps everyone, not just a few. Here at UNMC, Doctors have already put a pig's heart into the neck of a sheep. The test was a success, and the first human xenotransplant may be just three years away. Barbara Woodman won't be the patient but she'd like to be. [Woodman] "If they can try it, just one success will give everyone
a lot of hope." |
 |
 |
