The first human organ created inside an animal opens the door to manufacturing ‘spare parts’ for people
The first human organ created inside an animal opens the door to manufacturing ‘spare parts’ for people
In an experiment that raises bioethical issues, researchers in China have generated a blueprint of a humanized kidney in a pig embryo
Edit: Surprised at all the vegans in this thread. I didn't think there were so many of you. I'm glad you care so much about animal rights, that you're willing to forego eating them and using products made from them. If you're not vegan and have moral objections for this, maybe you should look at yourself first and all the animal abuse you sanction by eating animals and using animal products. Did you know dairy cows have to be pregnant to produce milk? They're artificially inseminated throughout most of their lives. I hope everyone complaining about this also complains about ice cream and cheese. Or else they would be hypocrites who just want to blame others but never look at themselves.
Maybe I don't have to stop drinking after all...
A truly pragmatic take away
Yeah, I'm wondering if I can pre-order
It takes time to grow, so you better!
You made me snort into my whiskey glass
I like the way you think! finishes beer and grabs another
So people kill animals for fun, but when someone suggests using animals to save lives it's evil?
Fix things in logical order and hopefully by then we'll have developed other solutions that do not depend on animals. But don't fight against progress when there are so many horrible and useless things that are allowed at the same time, pick your fights efficiently.
Farming pigs in ultra tiny spaces with horrible conditions where some of them die before getting brutally slaughtered to have cheap meat which is not necessary for human nutrition anymore, just tasty - totally fine
Farming pigs and treating them very well so that they grow healthy organs for terminally sick humans to then kill them in a controlled and anesthesized setting - how dare you
People just want to be heard.
I feel like contrarians exist because they feel more powerful going against the grain then going along with it.
Fuck it. Both good.
Am I the only one who thinks it's fucked up to experiment on animals who can't consent to this? We place so much emphasis on people being the most important thing in the world, we forgot that we are part of the ecosystem too.
This is and will always be small potatoes in terms of the suffering we put relatively intelligent animals through every day.
We would need to slaughter probably 100,000 animals yearly for the US organ demand (at ~50,000 transplants per year and a buffer).
We slaughter 125 MILLION pigs in the US for consumption a year.
Not to mention that "medical grade" pigs will probably be given a golden ticket in terms of care until they are slaughtered, compared to the extremely abysmal environment millions live in today.
If animal welfare is important to you, scientific research is a poor use of advocating resources while we still eat hundreds of pounds of meat yearly. If advocates reduce meat consumption by even a percent or two it would generally greatly outweigh banning animal based research entirely.
Animal testing isn’t ideal but for important medical advances, animal testing is the only way to demonstrate safety before human trials. At some point, you have to value the life of a human more than mice.
And some of the testing is fun. Like when they give them a buzzer to get more drugs. Lab rats definitely consent to more cocaine.
I mean, you're probably not the only one who thinks anything.
That said, do you eat meat? If so, the meat and dairy industries systematically do egregious things to millions of animals every day.
We are, but being a part of the ecosystem doesn't really mean much. Ecosystems aren't obligations, authorities, sources of morality or subject to it. They're just systems of relationships between organisms in a particular place. Whatever humans do, as long as it involves other organisms, that is our role in the local ecosystem. If we start doing something else, we aren't forgetting our role in the ecosystem, no role was ever assigned to us, our "role" is merely descriptive of what impact we have.
There are plenty of carnivores in the ecosystem. But I can’t think of another one that keeps prey suffering in a box from birth to death in order to feed itself.
It’s funny that we consider ourselves higher organisms because only we can even think about ethics or have ethics. But is it ethical to treat those incapable of ethics unethically?? If we are the only one in the picture with ethics, don’t we have a double responsibility to apply them for all?
It’s just another version of the food chain
Everyone is rushing in here to say it’s fine because we eat meat too. But I find this whole thing g very revealing of attitudes we usually just don’t think about. We’d never farm organs in human embryos because GASP consent and GASP sanctity of life. But we’ll farm organs cross species, which is surely more difficulty, because we’re so comfortable doing all that to animals.
You can take the perspective that it’s fine because meat. Or you can use this to take a second look at eating meat and suddenly it seems pretty fucked up.
I eat meat. Am not talking down to anyone. I just do actually think about the ethics.
It's definitely fucked up. It reminds me of the WKUK breakfast pig sketch.
Yeah, but you see; the animals are useful in a new way so ethics doesn't matter. We'll worry about that in 50 years when we no longer need them to grow new organs for us
We’ll worry about that in 50 years when we no longer need them to grow new organs for us
Yes that would be appropriate.
The comment section is laughable. I hope none of you or your loved ones will need an organ transplant in the future, since it's better to be put on a waiting list and cross your fingers that you won't die before an organ is available, since cattle is oh-so-important and precious.
Cattle are important and precious. There are already immoral practices brought by capitalism while raising animals for slaughter. This doesn't imply that it's moral to now bring an animal to life just to steal its organs as well.
Organ transplant can be achieved artificially by just developing the organs themselves in the lab. There already has been work done in that regard.
I’m not going to say this is immoral but it does reveal how little we care about animals when we are willing to farm organs across species, which has got to be more difficult. It’s something we would never consider doing with humans but will be willing to bend over backward to do with animals., and then vociferously defend it online. It’s just revealing, that’s all. Animals have zero moral standing in our society. None.
Weird take, it's like you're conflating acceptable losses and apathy.
Scientists would use human embryos, if given the ability to. Unfortunately there are people who believe that life happens the moment a man injects his baby batter into a woman's love tunnel.
These are why people kill animals for this, not because they "don't give a shit about animals".
We would absolutely consider doing this with humans. We actually DO this with humans. Skin grafts, organ transplants.
Yeah, I don't really take meat-eaters seriously when they complain about animal rights abuses.
They clearly don't care, or else they wouldn't be eating meat, lol.
Counterpoint: It is possible to be a person who consumes meat while also caring that the meat they are consuming is sourced ethically (e.g. not raised in confinement, humanely slaughtered with as little pain inflicted as possible, etc.).
If you asked the average consumer if they cared whether or not the meat that they were buying is abuse-free, I'd say 99% of them would say that they do in fact care, but the meat industry does everything in it's power to obfuscate the process so they can keep up their cost-saving abusive tactics to save a few pennies.
You can have humanely sourced meat. There's a vast difference between "wow Tyson is a fucking horrible company, don't buy their chicken" and "wow this local farm/butcher really fucking did a good job".
Death is a part of life. The problem with the meat industry is overconsumptiom. Not with killing animals for meat.
devils advocate.
I hope aliens are real and they choose you to pump out more organs because theirs failed from all the shit they eat so this way they can keep doing unhealthy things. Because there’s plenty of selfish people out there who chose to damage their bodies.
it’s not fair that some random fucking animal gets to be brought onto the earth solely for the purpose of your fat fucking ass who can’t stop shoving burgers down your face.
Yes I did ignore legitimate uses for this sort of thing because no shit some people actually need organs at no fault of their own and no, I’m not talking about animals being used for food because that’s not the topic.
Humans truly are the monsters in this story.
I'd still prefer growing headless human clones for parts, but this is good enough.
No ManBearPig mentions yet? Half man, half bear, half pig?
No, it's half bear and half man pig
Correction: It's 1/3 man, 1/3 bear, 1/3 pig.
God forbid pigs learn fractions.
don't miss out your monthly payment.
I'm all for this, but this comments section is crazy. Huge ratios for both sides.
The article says embryos so I don't think it's living animals being tested on, that being said it's also China, so fuck knows what other sorts of inhumane stuff is going on that isn't being talked about.
The pigoons said they would leave your garden alone if you stopped hunting them.
Man, I have ALWAYS wished outloud "I wish we humans has spare parts, so I can replace my always congested nose, my fucked up knee and shoulder". My dream is finally coming true????
Those are sadly not organs.
Damn.
Well, it's a start. I wouldn't mind a new knee myself.
Damn!
Some Scottish scientist has been working with 3D printing organs. I haven't heard anything about it in a few years though. This is definitely cheaper, as he has to work with your specific stem cells and culture them to use as "ink"
The future looks bright.
Hopefully in my life time. Lol
It’s interesting that we go to all the trouble of farming human organs in animals specifically because we’re okay killing animals. Surely it would work way better to farm human organs in human embryos. But we go about it sideways because that’s how much we don’t give a shit about animals.
Weird take, it's like you're conflating acceptable losses and apathy.
Scientists would use human embryos, if given the ability to. Unfortunately there are people who believe that life happens the moment a man injects his baby batter into a woman's love tunnel.
These are why people kill animals for this, not because they "don't give a shit about animals".
So what happens to the clones on The Island?
Great news but an absolute braindead take from most commenters here..
Firstly, I would like to thank our Tleilaxu overlords
Is it just me, or did I see this exact headline like 10 separate times?
Right, and this time they are just as uncertain if this method will lead to usable organs. It still has lots of pig dna in some structures in the organ.
I think China called dibs on that achievement decades ago.
They don't need pigs for that when a whole bunch of fully grown political dissidents are available for slaughter at the earliest convenience.
first human organ created inside an animal opens the door to manufacturing ‘spare parts’ for people
China:
The Island and Chicken Run crossover nobody asked for!
Surprised at all the vegans in this thread
OP spreading the word of the saviour and lord veganism.
WITH NO ETHICAL QUESTION AT ALL
How does it change anything in regards to ethics? It's still shoving animal parts inside your body, but instead of using the mouth, we cut a hole in our stomach, and use that.
If it was ethical before, it still is. If it wasn't ethical before, it still isn't.
NO STRONG FEELINGS ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.
