IUBio

Head (or body!) transplants?

Diane Pritchatt diane at bnclib.demon.co.uk
Thu Apr 3 06:04:13 EST 1997


I have often joked to those around me that what I really need is a body
transplant, as I have several health problems that leave me in quite a
state at times.

I actually saw a programme along the lines of the one Brian Scott saw,
about 15 years ago here in the UK.

I have to say that I think in reality such a possibility would present
enormous ethical problems.  Who would give their body to be joined up to
someone else's head?  Do donors leaving their bodies for medical
research think that they are going to be used in this sort of way?  I
expect that the majority hope that their organs will be given to other
people individually, eg kidney transplants, corneal grafts, etc.
Informed consent, I bet, would mean people would revile at the thought
of this being done after their deaths.

Why is Dr White doing this in the Ukraine?  I would like to ask how
people over there react to such an operaTION being proposed, even on
their dead relatives - ie brainstem dead, I would hope not still
actually alive!

I find it very distrurbing that Dr White is able to go to the Ukraine to
conduct experiments on humans, when his own countrymen won't allow this,
for ethical reasons in his own country.  The Ukrainians might not have
access to such stringent ethical boards in their own country, or perhaps
are too poor - no reason to go and conduct unethical experiments on
them.  At the risk of being reactionary, does this not smack of 'medical
experiments' in Nazi Germany, on the Jews and other dispossessed groups
of unfortunate individuals?

I was recently shown an article in 'Brain' from the 1950's, about a
German doctor who conducted experiments on people in the eastern bloc
after the war - destroying groups of nerves systematically in their
bodies, to see how they reacted.  Again, I found that most disturbing,
and what was more, it appeared in a mainstream and highly respected
research journal such as Brain, under the auspices of genuine research
for the 'good' of patients.  Just because such an article appears in a
well known journal, I believe it should not negate, or indeed cloud, our
response to the ethics of conducting such experiments.

In article <5hv2cr$f57 at gold.interlog.com>, Brian Scott
<brians at interlog.com> writes
>In article <19970330145600.JAA21179 at ladder01.news.aol.com>,
>DrGG4 <drgg4 at aol.com> wrote:
>>I have reprint from Science from the 70s about a monkey brain kept "alive"
>>in a bell jar. Whate ever being alive means in this context?
>>Gary
>
>
>I just saw a show on The Learning Channel last night called Science 
>Fiction - Science Fact.  They interviewed a neurosurgeon named Robert 
>White in Connecticut who performed a  head transplant with monkeys.  
>There was actual footage from the operation, and it showed the newly 
>transplanted monkey head alive and well, and it was able to visually 
>track stimuli etc.  It lived for about two weeks and it's death was said 
>to be due to immune rejection problems.  This was done in 1971 but I 
>haven't seen any corresponding publication.   White is eager to try this 
>in paralyzed humans and said in the interview that he's making 
>arrangements with a group in the Ukraine!
>
>If you do a Medline search for "head transplant" at least one article 
>came up for me, but it was a spanish article about a head transplant in dogs.
>
>Brian
>
>

-- 
Diane Pritchatt



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