That said, I worry about the cross-species disease potential with transplants like this. Like, not from the lungs themselves but is the recipient more able to catch porcine-exclusive diseases zoonotically now? What if they work on a hog farm and are breathing in stuff all day there? Seems like a danger that could be overlooked.
I have no idea if having pig organs would make one more susceptible to pig diseases, but I imagine the human immune system (as opposed to a pig immune system) would play a part in this as well.
That said, the anti-rejection meds usually given to transplant patients make them more susceptible to infection in general. So the added risk could be negligible.
Also worth noting, if it were me and my lungs were failing, I’d choose “at risk for pig diseases” over “certain death” any day.
The thing is, a lot of serious human disease started as diseases affecting other animals that made the jump over: Tuberculosis, Anthrax, and Plague, Ebola, and likely Covid-19, so regardless of how much someone might want an intervention like this to survive it’s with giving consideration, in my opinion
Human-to-pig is proving more difficult.
That said, I worry about the cross-species disease potential with transplants like this. Like, not from the lungs themselves but is the recipient more able to catch porcine-exclusive diseases zoonotically now? What if they work on a hog farm and are breathing in stuff all day there? Seems like a danger that could be overlooked.
I have no idea if having pig organs would make one more susceptible to pig diseases, but I imagine the human immune system (as opposed to a pig immune system) would play a part in this as well.
That said, the anti-rejection meds usually given to transplant patients make them more susceptible to infection in general. So the added risk could be negligible.
Also worth noting, if it were me and my lungs were failing, I’d choose “at risk for pig diseases” over “certain death” any day.
The thing is, a lot of serious human disease started as diseases affecting other animals that made the jump over: Tuberculosis, Anthrax, and Plague, Ebola, and likely Covid-19, so regardless of how much someone might want an intervention like this to survive it’s with giving consideration, in my opinion