With the recent transplant in the USA of the heart of a pig in a human person, it has resurfaced the controversy of the ethics of transplants from animals to humans.
Much has been said and little has been done about the transplant of organs from animals to humans, especially due to technical problems of rejection by the person who receives the organ.
But techniques have come a long way, and in the last transplant the pig's heart had been genetically modified to make it more like a human heart, thus reducing the possibility of rejection.
It remains to be seen whether genetic alterations facilitate human acceptance of organs from other animals. And it is to be hoped that this is the case.
From a religious point of view, both Jews and Arabs (who do not consume pork) accept this type of transplant to safeguard a person's life.
But on the other hand, some animal protection associations such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are directly opposed to these treatments. And they have their reasons, although I do not share them.
The doctors who have operated on this person have indicated that without this operation he would have died without remedy, so in my opinion the operation was justified, and it may be a step towards the development of a new technology that helps organ transplants to save many human lives.
Today there are thousands of people around the world waiting to receive a transplant to stay alive, and this is good news, although it will be many years before these techniques are widely implemented.
But we have to bet on the new technologies to solve some problems that we have not yet been able to solve. I hope they do it as soon as possible.
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