Pigs as organ donors

[SusanDoris]

Shaker

If you needed a new heart valve, would you be happy with a metal (or plastic or whatever is used) one? These are more often used for younger people, I understand, as the tissue ones are only supposed to last for up to ten years.

[Rhiannon]

I have very strong reservations about live donorship. There are massive discrepancies between the information given to potential donors in this country and elsewhere (for example in the USA it is accepted that living donation of a kidney can lead to a greater strain on the heart, ongoing mental health issues, and donors are given priority placing on the waiting list as their remaining kidney is more likely to fail) and there is nothing like enough safeguarding to ensure against coercion, even done in all innocence. Counselling and consent should be given before the process starts to ensure that all potential donors aren't under pressure from family - unfortunately I've heard of families being tested and a sibling identified as suitable, at which point the expectation is donation whether they are happy with the process or not.

That doesn't mean I think it shouldn't happen - there are three people who'd get one of my kidneys in a heartbeat - but the way the system works needs to be administered in a better way to safeguard potential donors and the risks honestly explained.

[Shaker]

I am of the opinion it is far better to use a pig's organ instead of a live donor, if a suitable dead donor isn't available. A live donor might require their kidney or lung in the future.

The point surely is that with an opt-out system both pig organs and those from live donors would be unnecessary.

[floo]

I have very strong reservations about live donorship. There are massive discrepancies between the information given to potential donors in this country and elsewhere (for example in the USA it is accepted that living donation of a kidney can lead to a greater strain on the heart, ongoing mental health issues, and donors are given priority placing on the waiting list as their remaining kidney is more likely to fail) and there is nothing like enough safeguarding to ensure against coercion, even done in all innocence. Counselling and consent should be given before the process starts to ensure that all potential donors aren't under pressure from family - unfortunately I've heard of families being tested and a sibling identified as suitable, at which point the expectation is donation whether they are happy with the process or not.

That doesn't mean I think it shouldn't happen - there are three people who'd get one of my kidneys in a heartbeat - but the way the system works needs to be administered in a better way to safeguard potential donors and the risks honestly explained.

Of course I would donate a lung or kidney to someone in my family who is in need of one. However, if organs from a pig were available, and prove to be suitable that would be a better option, especially as recovery time from surgery at my age would take longer than when I was younger.

[Rhiannon]

Avoiding major surgery is always a better option. Not convinced organs from pigs is the way to go.

[Shaker]

Shaker

If you needed a new heart valve, would you be happy with a metal (or plastic or whatever is used) one? These are more often used for younger people, I understand, as the tissue ones are only supposed to last for up to ten years.

No, I wouldn't go for that either.

[floo]

Avoiding major surgery is always a better option. Not convinced organs from pigs is the way to go.

I think a lot more work needs to be done first before one can be 100% certain pigs' organs are a better option than those of humans.

[Robbie]

Agreed floo = &would be less unhappy about a plastic one even if it only had a ten year guarantee. Ten years not to be sneezed at.

[SusanDoris]

Unfortunately I have already had four of them!! And the year following was coping with recovering from  being knocked down by that car!

I'm hoping the tap dancing will make the valve realise the benefits of working properly for longer!

[Robbie]

No dissing of you for having porcine valves Susan! s'great!
Floo & I are talkig hypothetically,not having been in your position.

[BeRational]

Avoiding major surgery is always a better option. Not convinced organs from pigs is the way to go.

I have no idea either, but the people who are experts in the field will hopefully find out.

[jeremyp]

Both see pigs as things, objects which exist only to serve human desires, crops to be harvested and not the intelligent and affectionate sentient social creatures they actually are.

Those two views of pigs are not mutually exclusive. They do only exist to serve human desires. If everybody stopped eating meat there would be no pigs.

And they are quite intelligent. I wouldn't like to comment on how affectionate they are though.

[Shaker]

Those two views of pigs are not mutually exclusive. They do only exist to serve human desires. If everybody stopped eating meat there would be no pigs.

And? A good deal for the (then nonexistent) pigs, I'd have thought.

I've never understood the pseudo-argument that any existence no matter how horrific is better than none. Especially since most people support assisted dying, but hey, most people are massive fucking hypocrites anyway.

[Robbie]

I've never understood the pseudo-argument that any existence no matter how horrific is better than none. Especially since most people support assisted dying, but hey, most people are massive fucking hypocrites anyway.

I toofeel like that Shaker, never understand why people want to hang on to life at any cost when they probably won't be around for too many more years anway BUT is different if there's a good chance of many years of reasonable health, especially for someone not very old who is enjoying life & may have children to bring up.

[Rhiannon]

It's being a single mum that's the game changer for me. I kind of have to stay alive as I'm needed. Probably not quite as much as the dog but hey.

[Robbie]

Yes being a parent alters how you feel about such things. I know someone, my age, who has a disabled son. She carries a card she made herself saying she always wants to be resuscitated because her son is so dependent on her.

[Rhiannon]

It's really quite daunting. I try not to think about it.

[Shaker]

'Hundreds dying because families block organ donation even when relatives are on register'

Hundreds of people are dying needlessly each year waiting for transplants because families are reluctant to talk about whether their relatives actually wanted to donate their organs.

More than three families a week are saying no to organ donation even when relatives have signed the NHS Organ Donor Register, new figures from the NHS show.

Although carrying a donor card demonstrates a legal decision to donate, in practice if a family strongly objects, it does not go ahead.  

NHS Blood and Transplant say many families are often unsure and decide it is safer to say no, meaning around 460 lifesaving organ transplants are missed each year.

Last year 457 people died while on the active transplant waiting list and a further 875 people were removed from the list, because they became too ill for an organ. Many of these people will have died shortly after being removed.

http://tinyurl.com/ycsb2pwy

Surely it's now high time to rush in an opt-out system and also to remove the ability of a family to overrule a person's wishes.

[floo]

I think it is wrong for a relative to block a person's right to be an organ donor if they have signed up to it.

[Shaker]

I would just love somebody who objects to organ donation to read this story then look me in the eye and tell me their opinion is unchanged: http://tinyurl.com/ybfy7oba

[Rhiannon]

I think that this article is important because it highlights one reason why people don't give permission - the need to protect the dead person, especially a child, even an adult child. It's not rational but people seldom are following sudden death, and most people who die in circumstances suitable for donation will die suddenly and as a parents especially I can understand the feeling of 'I should have stopped it'.

That doesn't make it right, but it might give an insight as to how hospitals can approach the bereaved - that there are other families who want to protect their loved ones maybe.

[BeRational]

I would just love somebody who objects to organ donation to read this story then look me in the eye and tell me their opinion is unchanged: http://tinyurl.com/ybfy7oba

I agree, and would also say the same to someone who said we should not use pigs as donors.

[Shaker]

I agree, and would also say the same to someone who said we should not use pigs as donors.

Except we don't need to use pigs.

[BeRational]

Except we don't need to use pigs.

But we can, and they work, so why not do so?

[Shaker]

But we can, and they work, so why not do so?

We do not need to do so. The solution to the shortage of organs is in our hands already without inflicting even more suffering on pigs. There are two solutions to the dearth of organs; one involves inflicting even more suffering on sentient creatures and one doesn't. Since I think suffering is a bad thing the second is preferable. That solution too is tried and tested. We don't have to guess; we know it works (#169; #171; #192).

We've covered all this before.