For nearly half a century, scientists have been trying to create a process for transplanting animal organs into humans, a theoretical dream that could help the hundreds of thousands of people in need of a lifesaving transplant. But the risks, specifically of transmitting the PERV virus from pigs to humans, have always been too great, stalling research — until now. In a mind-blowing talk, geneticist Luhan Yang explains a breakthrough: using CRISPR, a technique for editing genes, she and her colleagues have created pigs that don't carry the virus, opening up the possibility of safely growing human-transplantable organs in pigs. Learn more about this cutting-edge science and how it could help solve the organ shortage crisis.
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Well I mean some countries are over populated
@Veo Ghost Before you said it was already over populated, now you’re saying it’s not over populated but it will be. Don’t you see what an unintelligent idiot you are?
+Finn MacCool yea I see that now I should have made my position more clearer
Finn MacCool bruh not everything is about left and right. Any statistics will tell you that the population is increasing exponentially . By 2056 we would have 10 billion people , meaning we would have to double all our resources. If we don’t kill anyone or have population control we have to see what we are doing to the environment. Farming for animals is 60% of land use at the moment, and using them for this industry is only going to make things worse. Sometimes it’s not about politics but about facts
+Potato salad yea that’s the type of argument I was going for I just don’t argue well at night
Veo Ghost gotchu fam, but also you are kind of right. Bc right now there are so many people that 1 in 5 are malnutrition’ed and don’t have a safe water supply. Our resources right now are less efficient with how many people there are. In the future it only gets worse
Yes, more life saving technology… for those who can afford it 🙁
Yes and cars were only for the elites as well. The first batch of a medicine is always the most costly. Also expensive medicines are available in many countries with universal healthcare.
freesk8 There’s probably a lot of government funding going into the research of this though. Researchers getting grants from the government and working in public universities.
I agree, private companies will be faster at lowering costs and delivering to market because it makes shareholders happy.
But ultimately all developed countries are mixed market at some level, because going to either extreme of socialism or capitalism is harmful for society. Ideologies and labels don’t matter, what matters is what works.
Welfare programs in fact have an incredible ROI for the tax revenues spent (SNAP for instance generates $1.73 in real GDP increase for every tax dollar spent). The relief of getting money can effectively raise IQ by 13 points and therefore improve decision making. Some parts of welfare are idiotic, like the harsh turn on tax brackets when you get a job. A good solution to this issue is the Negative Income Tax. But the simple act of giving money to the poor to improve their lot is solid, connotations of “socialism” notwithstanding.
Sauce:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/260015/
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/08/29/poor-concentration-poverty-reduces-brainpower-needed-navigating-other-areas-life
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax
Google: economies of scale.
ElectricChaplain [ comes the sauce with or w/out something-to-dip-in-with? ]
Every technology ever is always expensive at the begining and then become acessible to the majority of the population.
You make selling organs legal – eliminates the black market and gives you plentiful cheap organs
Great one! Thanks for posting this!
You make selling organs legal
Poor people start selling their organs for money or money for food
The rich start to live of the organs of the poor that are easily manipulated and cheated on
The humans becomes nothing but another piece of meat in the market.
You don’t legalize it you fight to stop it you fight to fix things with real solutions so that it’s not profitable to steal organs or to risk your life selling yours to feed your family
It looks simple to make it the “easy” way but people don’t see the real problems you would get with it.
ilegal organs means. they abduct children kill them take oragns and sell it.. or buy children… In india a girl can be bought from black market at 50,000 to 100,000₹ means 1000 -2000 $.. this is done by their on parents,.. same situation in many third world countries.. i hope u have seen movie touristas, similar story.. sad but true..
I bet Lika is not so happy about your solution. Just sayin….
It’s better than the Chinese government forcibly harvesting organs from human political prisoners.
I would imagine the next step is to grow these organs without a host animal. that would be pretty ideal. THey are now growing meat in labs for consumption so the organs is not that far away I would hope.
I think there is a vast difference between edible meat and a very complex organ that has to be accepted by the patients body.
It promote animal exploitation again… This is a bad idea, im not in at all
+Dragon Holyfire People really need to stop eating crap and living unhealthy lifes, then both humans and pigs live. You can say ‘human lifes matter more!’ but if humans weren’t so careless then you wouldn’t be in a situation you feel the need to murder pigs.
+Obi Ji-wan Kenobi That’s bs. It’s not like everyone gets pig transplants. Right now, we get human transplants of people who died.
Life is not fair, get over it or die.
Life is Sacred, and we are not God.
+Johnny Rep we have to sort out the mess that your god allows to happen.
Xenotransplantation isn’t good. If we were doing this with dogs everyone would protest. So how is it okay to do it with pigs given that they are more intelligent than a 3 year old girl?
Lugh Summerson sentience is the capacity to feel and perceive. Have the will to live means you avoid pain and suffering. To do this you must have sentience. So sentience is a thing you have , or don’t have. Pigs are not like slugs I agree. But pigs have the same will to live just like us. Taking that away for us isn’t right . And taking away a human life for them isn’t right either. I disagree that a will to live can be measured, it can’t
I wouldn’t mind with having human lives over dog or pig lives I love animals and all but if I had a choice between saving my mother or my house dog I love my dog but he has to go and I’m sure you would do the same 🙂
+Potato salad would you or would you not take your mother’s life over a dogs
You’re talking absolute nonsense. Every animal, plant, bacteria and virus does what it can to live. That is a necessary condition for the continuation of any species. All animals than can be said to have a will have a “will to live” because the mind is a tool for survival and reproduction.
What do you think the difference is between a slug’s suffering and a pig’s suffering? It is the capacity to be aware, to feel and to understand. All increase with the increasing sophistication of the brain. There is nowhere between the sophistication of a slug and a pig where you can draw a line and say “all these animals cannot suffer and all these can”.
It is all to do with the relative size and complexity of the species’ brain. Sentience and capacity for suffering is a scale and we should treat different animals accordingly. A three-year-old girl has greater rights than a pig because her species has greater sentience and greater capacity for suffering. It disgusts me that you need to have that explained to you.
+Lugh Summerson you right I love animals but if I had to give up 20 dogs for my little sister or mom or even a random person I would
Piglet lives matter!
I’d be into getting to raise the pig until its old enough to give me its yummy yummy kidney transplant goodness. Papa wants that pee pee filter sexy sexy.*Heavy Breathing*
a piglet born by a human mother for that matter
Of course they matter. Bacon is so good, and their organs for our health too!
Yes, but my life and my friends and family’s lives more xD.
Yeah I felt the same.
Is raising animals to be killed for their organs logically consistent with your moral compass? ContInue reading if you wish to find out.
Without getting bogged down in a debate on meta-ethics, about the fundamental nature of good and evil, let us instead use logic to determine whether the manner in which we treat animals is ethical by the moral standards we hold.
Assuming you believe it is immoral to raise Humans to be killed for their organs, but it isn’t immoral to do the same to an animal, this implies there is some difference (or differences) between Humans and animals that justifies the difference in treatment. Whatever that difference(s) may be, if it were found in a Human, would it not logically justify the same treatment? If not, you are applying a double standard, that is to say you are a hypocrite.
+IndigoXYZ18
Yes, however those would have to be very stupid humans, unable to grasp the abstract concepts that allow civilization and language. We would have to be sure those “humans” are incapable of createting more intelligent offspring.
Event Hʘriךּon This really shouldn’t be that hard to understand, all I’m asking for is consistency.
For example if these pigs were genetically engineered to be born with anencephaly (no brain), I’d be cool with it (I know they wouldn’t survive long enough to be of any use, but you get the ethical point I’m trying to mke). Likewise I would have no qualms with gnetically engineering Humans with anencephaly for organ harvesting or medical experiments, what have you.
Now there is a justification for raising animals for slaughter *that if true of a Human would also justify raising Humans for slaughter.* So whats yours? Look it’s really simple, whatever reason you say it is justified to raise animals for the purposes of being killed, swap out animals for Humans and see if it sounds right.
For example: “but to be clear i think how we treat *Humans* right now is unethical, but if you keep them in a farm, let them roam about and have fun, after they get kinda old i dont think it would be so bad to take one or two. In the end we must remember we gotta die, its how we lived and died that matters.”
If free range farming does justfy harvesting the organs of pigs but not Humans, you are saying free range farming does and doesn’t justify organ harvesting. As in you’ve been mathamarically proven to be a hypocrite.
Lastly there’s this: “The difference between a pig and a human is purely because i am part of the second group. If i were a pig id think differently.”. Good of you to include the “If i were a pig id think differently.”, so you realize the us vs them gimmick is an arbitrary line, meaning you can draw it anywhere.
So how does this sound?: “The difference between blue eyed & brown eyed people is purely that I am a part of the second group. If I had blue eyes I’d feel differently about having my organs harvested”. Either you concede by your standard anybody can be justified in organ harvesting depending on where they draw their arbitrary line, or concede hypocracy.
Jonatan D “Humans”? lacking sapience doesn’t make you any less Human than lacking a left arm. Some Humans are born with animal level intelligence, this isn’t a matter of scientific controversy.
For examle when I was young and in elementary school I used to on ocassion help take care of a mentally handicapped girl with the intellect of a dog, if that. She couldn’t recognize her self in the mirror, and the most enjoyment she seemed to find in life was playing with chew toys.
That was a dirty move “well we have to be positive they can’t reproduce”, but I can respect that. I’ve backed you into a tight intelectual corner, I’ve never see sombody attempt that escape before. Nomatter, for thee sake of argument these mentlly handicapped Humans are all sterile.
Either concede that your ethical system in principal permits the deaths of a countless number of sterile mentally handicapped non-sapient Humans with animal level intelligence, or concede hypocracy for applying a double standard.
+IndigoXYZ18
The deaths would be justified, because they would benefit the rest of mankind. They wouldn’t have to be sterile, just incapable of having smarter offspring, so no smart humans are killed.
+IndigoXYZ18
Having less intelligence doesn’t make something less human, but it makes it less valuable. We give value to life based on it’s intelligence.
Pro-human over here. Sorry vegans.
I’ve a better idea. Start finding the causation instead of just treating the effects. But no that’s not profitable, is it?
Man you are truly incompetent
Have you ever heard of etiology??? It’s literally the study of the causation of disease.
You are right.
Ben Saber
Please provide reliable sources or it doesn’t exist.
7seven7 Who are you talking to? NIH? Beijing ? You sound like there’s one centrailized institution that decide which to research and which not to. There are hundreds of thousands scientists everywhere tackling different problems
Personally I find this to be the future of medical transplants, before you say i am immoral or a monster. Hold up
What if your mother was dying and needed transplant? But it wouldn’t happen fast enough. Would you rather sacrifice the life of something we already raise to die. Or the lives of loved ones?
It’s dark but true. We already do raise pigs to be slaughtered.. the difference is this would benefit Humanity. Also this isn’t the only option. Turn your attention to 3D printers. With DNA material they can make viable organs.
So does this mean the Chinese government will stop forcibly harvesting organs from its political prisoners?
Probably not. They’re making billions.
What happen to 3D printed organs??????????
This is it
Easy solution:
Let Skynet take over and only machines that don’t need transplants exist
Machines, even most electric ones, have moving parts that experience friction and need to be replaced.
This strangely reminds me of the book Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. Genetically modified animals to produce organs for humans based on their genetics so that they always are accepted by the body. It didn’t turn out too well.
I was looking for this comment mentioning Oryx and Crake. Thanks.
Yay more animal cruelty. You should be so ashamed and all of those who applauded u too. This is really outrageous . Ted I am really disappointed on u.
Do you have better alternative?
So saving one human life for a pig’s life is cruel to you even if there isn’t another way? The amount of “animal cruelty” would be millions of times less than the meat industry, especially when these “medicinal pigs” would be cared for to the maximum instead of treated cruelly like many meat industry animals.
“How to create a world were none dies waiting for transplant” (except for the animals)
Yeah… we humans sure are a selfish and cruel race.
A human life is more valuable than that of a pig.
lol, bleeding heart fools. Life is always going to consume other life to survive. Accept this fact.
Besides, eventually, we’ll be able to lab grow such organs without harming animals. But it will still likely consume life that are microscopic.
Do you only care about the animals that are cute? That are large enough for you to see? Or do you feel bad for even the microscopic? Do you feel bad for the microscopic parasitic life that you might kill off with your own immune system or antibiotics when you get sick?
Idiots think there is no karma for unethical choices.
+Kashina Crabbe
There is only karma for stupid choices, many of which are unethical.
+Kashina Crabbe There is no such thing as Karma. There might be consequences for every action we do, but those don’t mean they are consequences that fit the actions for some bullshit moral system. Children need to stop pretending there’s karma or god or any sort of moral code or some sorta rules of the universe (outside of the physics ones) out there.
Eat pigs > get heart disease > harvest and transplant pig organs > fix heart disease
A sad irony (yes I’m aware of genetic disorders before you start heavy breathing)
Pork in moderation is not going to give people heart disease. Eating too much meat can.
It’s also heartbreaking for the piglets. They’re babies. Where will we draw the line?
Growing human organs in pig babies is one of the most unethical things that humans will ever do. There is always another way.
A human life is more valuable than a pig’s life, and they would die anyway so why not use their organs