Organ Farming

[Xittenn]

I watched a rather disturbing movie last night. I didn't cry as much as I normally do, as it was a bit sad, I think this was a side effect of my being so purely and utterly disgusted and disturbed at the idea. The movie was Never Let Me Go and it was alright in terms of movies. I'll avoid the details of the actual movie and get to the point.

 

In the film the idea of organ farming from engineered persons was presented as a feat of medical science made to the general public. We may not presently have the technology to engineer persons in any way, shape or form and this point is rather moot. We currently do have the technology to transplant organs. I know there are no programs currently available that allow the growth of a human being for the sole purpose of organ transplants. What really scared me about this movie was the very real potential for black market organ farming. I've seen a lot in terms of film and in terms of news with regards to human trafficking. It really disturbs me to think that individuals with less than respectable outlooks on life who do deal in criminal activity will in fact be developing a new black market that revolves around the farming of persons for their organs.

 

Most people don't want to die and a good many are ready to do something to make their lives last just a little longer; even if it is illegal, immoral and evil.

[Pangloss]

If we leave out the brain (which presents a very different kind of discussion, both technically and metaphysically), what would be immoral or evil about growing organs for use in transplantation?

[Xittenn]

If we leave out the brain (which presents a very different kind of discussion, both technically and metaphysically), what would be immoral or evil about growing organs for use in transplantation?

 

Absolutely nothing .... If I ever go to school, and I hope I do, it will be for Tissue Engineering and this would be one subject I would like to dedicate much time to. It is also something I spend a lot of time thinking about. Things like how would physical development of the body take place? Would we just put the thing on a tread mill and feed it through intravenous?

 

Regardless it hadn't really occurred to me the reality of this potential for live, human, brain intact specimens being handled now. I guess part of this comes from some of my recent endeavors into certain communities who view certain aspects of slavery differently than most. I am open minded but the reality of this makes me so sad and scared and sick .... it's making me cry :/

Edited January 30, 2011 by Xittenn

[dragonstar57]

Absolutely nothing .... If I ever go to school, and I hope I do, it will be for Tissue Engineering and this would be one subject I would like to dedicate much time to. It is also something I spend a lot of time thinking about. Things like how would physical development of the body take place? Would we just put the thing on a tread mill and feed it through intravenous?

 

Regardless it hadn't really occurred to me the reality of this potential for live, human, brain intact specimens being handled now. I guess part of this comes from some of my recent endeavors into certain communities who view certain aspects of slavery differently than most. I am open minded but the reality of this makes me so sad and scared and sick .... it's making me cry :/

can't they grow the organs without having to grow a whole human (saw a national geographic about it)

[Xittenn]

NASA had grown active heart tissue ...

[Mr Skeptic]

I don't think growing whole humans would be practical (and would be considered unethical, brain or no, by a lot of people). Growing individual organs from a mold would result in quicker development as compared growing a complete human, and since people wouldn't want to wait a decade or two for their new organs that would be the way to go.

[Mrs Zeta]

Leaving aside ethical and financial considerations, the growing of human organs is one of the most promising ways to help us replace organs (or tissues) damaged by ageing. In fact, it is one of the ways suggested for achieveing "immortality".

 

Whether it will be done in 'farms' or laboratories, depends on the definition. Do people who undergo IVF collect their egg/sperm from a 'farm'? It sounds dramatic, but what is meant of course is not a farm along the conventional lines, but a scientific, controlled laboratory. I see nothing wrong with that.

[TonyMcC]

Using animals to grow organs suitable for humans seems already under development. Valves from pigs hearts are used today and an experimental ear was grown on the back of a mouse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacanti_mouse

[insane_alien]

hmm, growing the rest of the body to get a specific organ seems wasteful and probably more difficult than just growin the organ

[Pangloss]

Well, we could use the leftover biomass for fuel. Switchgrass hasn't exactly worked out, and we need corn for Coca-Cola and Cheetos. Actually that's a nice little industry... trash the organs we have with bad food and thereby improve the market for new ones!

[Marat]

You have to view this entire issue in context. You will never see such scenes of utter horror and human desperation as you will witness if you go to a hospital where patients are dying -- slowly, hideously, and painfully -- from the need for a replacement organ. Unfortunately, because the potential organ donor has to die in highly specialized circumstances which allow for the organ to be harvested while the brain-dead patient is still on life support, the supply of organs from cadavers will always be miniscule and way below the demand. As a result, the dying will continue. Live volunteer donors can give a part of a liver or a kidney, but these too are in very short supply.

 

Now we know already from experiments on animals that it will in principle be possible to make designer-humans who are born as anencephalics -- that is, as humans who only have a vestigial brain sufficient to keep the lungs and heart functioning, but not to sustain consciousness. Anencephalic children are also born naturally, but they usually die quite quickly after birth.

 

However, if techniques could be developed to allow these anencephalics to grow and mature until their organs were the right size, say through parenteral nutrition, then we could have a functioning organ farm and no one would ever have to suffer and die for lack of a replacement organ.

 

In effect, then, the ethical question comes down to this: Would it be worth killing one anencephalic humanoid being -- with the general shape of a human but with no human brain, human experience, or human consciousness, to save the lives of at least six (heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, perhaps pancreas for some severe diabetics) fully human beings with full consciousness, a biography, friends, relatives, dependants, and prospects of sophisticated future social, cultural, and intellectual development?

 

The answer is a no-brainer.

[Pangloss]

The answer is a no-brainer.

 

Oof. Pun of the week award!

[dragonstar57]

You have to view this entire issue in context. You will never see such scenes of utter horror and human desperation as you will witness if you go to a hospital where patients are dying -- slowly, hideously, and painfully -- from the need for a replacement organ. Unfortunately, because the potential organ donor has to die in highly specialized circumstances which allow for the organ to be harvested while the brain-dead patient is still on life support, the supply of organs from cadavers will always be miniscule and way below the demand. As a result, the dying will continue. Live volunteer donors can give a part of a liver or a kidney, but these too are in very short supply.

 

Now we know already from experiments on animals that it will in principle be possible to make designer-humans who are born as anencephalics -- that is, as humans who only have a vestigial brain sufficient to keep the lungs and heart functioning, but not to sustain consciousness. Anencephalic children are also born naturally, but they usually die quite quickly after birth.

 

However, if techniques could be developed to allow these anencephalics to grow and mature until their organs were the right size, say through parenteral nutrition, then we could have a functioning organ farm and no one would ever have to suffer and die for lack of a replacement organ.

 

In effect, then, the ethical question comes down to this: Would it be worth killing one anencephalic humanoid being -- with the general shape of a human but with no human brain, human experience, or human consciousness, to save the lives of at least six (heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, perhaps pancreas for some severe diabetics) fully human beings with full consciousness, a biography, friends, relatives, dependants, and prospects of sophisticated future social, cultural, and intellectual development?

 

The answer is a no-brainer.

unfortunately this is based upon the argument that the counsionous is in the brain (i completely agree) but those who argue that even if something does not have a brain (or a brain that is not developed yet) might disagree (if for no other reason because it helps their argument)

[Marat]

There might be some vestigial consciousness in organs of the body with extensive nervous system involvement, but nothing that would qualify someone as a true human with a true consciousness. Unless we were to posit a soul somehow residing in the humanoid anencephalic body. But even if we were to concede that, then just as we would certainly save six people in an emergency from one burning building even if to do so we would have to leave one person in another burning building to his fate, we should also save the six people by six lethal organ transplants rather than keeping the one anencephalic with zero or almost no consciousness alive.

[dragonstar57]

There might be some vestigial consciousness in organs of the body with extensive nervous system involvement, but nothing that would qualify someone as a true human with a true consciousness. Unless we were to posit a soul somehow residing in the humanoid anencephalic body. But even if we were to concede that, then just as we would certainly save six people in an emergency from one burning building even if to do so we would have to leave one person in another burning building to his fate, we should also save the six people by six lethal organ transplants rather than keeping the one anencephalic with zero or almost no consciousness alive.

argue that to the same people that are against stem sell research

Edited January 31, 2011 by dragonstar57

[padren]

NASA had grown active heart tissue ...

 

NOVA did a show on PBS recently that demonstrated some interesting advances in growing artificial organs:

 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/can-we-live-forever.html

 

 

On the topic of the ethics and the use of humans specifically for organ harvesting while not likely, (as technological advances required to do so will open more cost effective mechanisms) it is a very real possibility and does underline how predatory and vicious this world can be. The brutality of what people experience right now is at times crushing, including those kept in a state more akin to a living-death on the fringe of starvation in places like North Korea, or equally cruel acts of predation or indifference the world over that cause immense suffering. However, within the context of where we have come from (Behavioral Modernity occurring about 50,000 years ago, and pretty brutal societies still just 4,000 years ago) the advances we have made in modern times to come out of the brutality that dominates the natural world is actually quite inspiring. We are still largely a predatory species, but we are steadily and consistently shrugging off the baggage that in earlier times was necessary for survival.

That's not to say we shouldn't be bothered by human-on-human predation - but it's the fact that we and an ever growing number of humans are bothered by it that there is enough social pressure to continually marginalize and reduce the amount of it in the world year by year.

[Marat]

You speak of the brutality of keeping people in a living death in North Korea, but of course the condition of people on dialysis has often been described as a living death, and the restrictive transplant policies adopted in developed countries is exactly what maintains the thousands of people with endstage renal disease in the unnecessary state of living death.

 

Problems in medical ethics always have to be assessed in context. Thus if you have two individuals, one of whom has no kidneys and must 'live' in the absolute horror of hemodialysis and the other of whom has two functioning kidneys, the total human happiness of that pair of people is quite low, since it is about zero for the hemodialysis patient and average (say) for the person with two healthy kidneys. But if you order that the healthy individual donate one kidney to the dialysis patient, the total human happiness of the pair will increase by a factor of ten thousand, since the donor will suffer minimal reduction in life quality, while the recipient will experience a nearly infinite improvement in life quality.

 

But now imagine that the donor is an anencephalic quasi-human who has been raised in an organ farm. If you have ever seen actual anencephalics you will know that they don't even look quite human, since they have filbert-shaped heads with cat-like faces, but their DNA at least induces us to classify them as human. They have no experience, no biography, no sophisticated feelings, no perceptions, hopes, dreams, ambitions, nothing except sufficient brain power to keep the lungs expanding and contracting and the heart beating. They are really no different from the type of non-brain-dead patients who have suffered cardiac death but are kept functioning on life support so their organs can be harvested for transplant, and yet these sources of transplant organs are considered ethically acceptable now in many jurisdictions.

 

So if you count the total gain in real, concrete, measureable, experienced human happiness from transplanting the organs from the brainless anencephalic to the living human in need of a transplant, there is a nearly infinite improvement in net human happiness. To refuse to take this step out of some sort of vague, emotive, irrational notions of 'human predatoriness' is utterly superstitious.

[Mr Skeptic]

Problems in medical ethics always have to be assessed in context. Thus if you have two individuals, one of whom has no kidneys and must 'live' in the absolute horror of hemodialysis and the other of whom has two functioning kidneys, the total human happiness of that pair of people is quite low, since it is about zero for the hemodialysis patient and average (say) for the person with two healthy kidneys. But if you order that the healthy individual donate one kidney to the dialysis patient, the total human happiness of the pair will increase by a factor of ten thousand, since the donor will suffer minimal reduction in life quality, while the recipient will experience a nearly infinite improvement in life quality.

 

I assume that by "a factor of ten thousand" you mean "almost double"?

[imatfaal]

Problems in medical ethics always have to be assessed in context. Thus if you have two individuals, one of whom has no kidneys and must 'live' in the absolute horror of hemodialysis and the other of whom has two functioning kidneys, the total human happiness of that pair of people is quite low, since it is about zero for the hemodialysis patient and average (say) for the person with two healthy kidneys. But if you order that the healthy individual donate one kidney to the dialysis patient, the total human happiness of the pair will increase by a factor of ten thousand, since the donor will suffer minimal reduction in life quality, while the recipient will experience a nearly infinite improvement in life quality.

 

Apart from the mathematical problem that Mr S pointed out above - that form of calculus can be used to justify practically any heinous act. The use of ethical committees in areas like this is to avoid sweeping generalizations and the reduction of humans to a book-keeping exercise. For the record I have no problem with organ donation and find myself on the "permissive side" of most arguments that crop up in similar areas; however I would take issue with statements such as this

 

 

So if you count the total gain in real, concrete, measureable, experienced human happiness from transplanting the organs from the brainless anencephalic to the living human in need of a transplant, there is a nearly infinite improvement in net human happiness.

 

It's not "real" nor "concrete" (it's your (ie the judges) opinion, it's definitely not "measureable" (as it is all based on a supposition that we can measure our own or another's happiness) , and it's not experienced (it's a possible future gain) - thus I beg to disagree with your modern modest proposal

[Marat]

Jeremy Bentham, the famous founder of utilitarianism, which today is the basis for attempts to base our social mores on rational calculations of the real gains and losses of anything we decide to permit or forbid, introduced a 'fellicific calculus' to measure in terms of real, comparable units the human happiness which results from one course of action rather than another. While I would admit that you cannot make an exact science of those comparisons, in part because the intensity or quality of happiness is not comparable among different people, it still usefully points to a criterion for evaluating ethical action which takes us away from purely emotive references to 'sacred' values whose metric makes no claim to correspond to any gains or losses in the real human happiness of real human beings. Thus typical of the values rejected by the utilitarian fellicific calculus is the supposed 'value' of not displeasing God, of holding His temples sacred, or of holding his injunctions sacred even if they do not correspond to any gains in human happiness, or even if they cause positive misery, such as the prohibition of abortion, premarital sex, work on the Sabbath, and other disutilitites imagined to be valuable for their own sake.

 

Applying that to the present case, we can readily see that while a dialysis patient receiving a transplant would go from being perpetually exhausted (anemia can only be minimally corrected in those patients), from spending much of their lives tied to a machine, from having a life expectancy below ten years, and from suffering countless medical complications, to suddenly living a life which most patients rate as nearly normal in quality, with a tripled life expectancy for diabetics with renal failure and a doubled life expectancy for the rest, this is a real, concrete, objective, and measurable gain in everything that we would all agree is constitutive of human happiness.

 

But then why would we balk at using anencephalics to provide these organs and save tens of thousands of lives a year in the U.S. alone by relieving the mass misery of the organ shortage? Because the anencephalic 'wants' to keep living its life? The anencephalic has less consciousness than a lizard! What is the real human benefit to the anencephalic of continued life? Is it planning a career in entertainment business? Is it looking forward to its planned vacation in Florida? The fact is that there is nothing 'measurable' there other than what is conjured up out of our vague feelings that gosh, gee, it sort of almost looks like a human, and aw, babies are so cute, and didn't someone say once in Sunday school that all life is sacred?

 

In a society that accepts abortions of highly developed human fetuses as legal -- not to save thousands of human lives, but just to allow women who forgot to take their birth control pill to avoid having to interrupt their careers -- it makes absolutely no sense to say that an anencephalic -- something much less human, which can never have human consciousness at any stage of development -- should have more rights. That is, not if we are disciplining our thinking by dealing in terms of measurable human values rather than imagistic, superstitious, medieval, sacredness-in-itself styles of thinking rejected in every other branch of disciplined thinking.

 

As to the quibble about whether one life can be ten thousand times better than another, have you ever considered that some lives, such as those of a dialysis patient which are pure torture and often perceived by the patient as worse than death (there is a huge suicide rate in this patient group), should be assigned a negative value far greater in absolute magnitude than the pleasure of even the best life?

[Mr Skeptic]

On that note... Most of us are OK with killing an embryo because it lacks the essential qualities of a human that require a sufficiently developed mind, for the simple convenience of the mother (granted, quite a big convenience). But what if instead of killing the embryo we performed brain surgery on it, sufficient to prevent consciousness from ever developing but not enough that it cannot perform the basic life functions. Thus, it could be born and develop into a brainless adult with organs large enough to donate. On the basis of brain development, it would still lack the essential qualities of a human, and via donation of organs could save or greatly improve the life of real people in need of organs. From a utilitarian perspective, that seems like the right choice, but it still seems distasteful.

[Xittenn]

On that note... Most of us are OK with killing an embryo because it lacks the essential qualities of a human that require a sufficiently developed mind, for the simple convenience of the mother (granted, quite a big convenience). But what if instead of killing the embryo we performed brain surgery on it, sufficient to prevent consciousness from ever developing but not enough that it cannot perform the basic life functions. Thus, it could be born and develop into a brainless adult with organs large enough to donate. On the basis of brain development, it would still lack the essential qualities of a human, and via donation of organs could save or greatly improve the life of real people in need of organs. From a utilitarian perspective, that seems like the right choice, but it still seems distasteful.

 

I rather dislike these conversations because my side generally is considered distasteful. At what point does this become distasteful? I mean if it were medically possible to transplant a brain from one aged body to one brain deficient body what would be so wrong with this? Let's say it is possible to remove the brain, via some technique involving the DNA, of the specimen and follow through the development of the specimen in some elaborate incubation process whereupon the specimen is brought to some form of suitable maturity, would this still be distasteful? If so to who and why do these people always seem to have a larger say in what is right for me?

 

It's not like the idea revolves around using the children of the poor as the specimen on account of them being poor. I am not of 'faith' and am actually more of a carnivorous devourer of life without regard and this doesn't help my case much. As I stated in the OP I do not wish to see harm done to humans and am seriously advocating against human trafficking but I do wish to see the rise of technologies which will advance my age far beyond what my expectancy is now and at the present rate of decent I'm dead meat . I have been looking into courses and certification on chemicals and bio-hazardous materials handling and also lab safety courses of which there are none in my local. I know an amount of the laws surrounding laboratory certification but extend that to research in areas like this and the laws are pretty well not established except to say, not happening.

 

I'm surprised there hasn't been more horror stories to date. I think stuff like this needs re-evaluation by political bodies or it will simply result in a newly developed underground pandemic. I have read articles and journals suggesting that the sudden appearance of home brew splicing projects may soon be an issue, well what about this? I was looking into the courses so as to be more prepared if and when I go to school for biochem. I would also, long term, wish to develop a research facility and I feel that if I prepare now this will be more likely to happen in the future. I don't think under current law that even the lesser developments will be allowed within a facility in my lifetime. This upsets me a bit but I guess I can always keep my mind open just in case and maybe interject some opinions along the way.

[Marat]

To help clarify the issue, just consider this model. You are in a lifeboat on the Atlantic Ocean with a seven other survivors of a shipwreck and the boat is rapidly taking on water from being overloaded. Six of the survivors are normal people with biographies, friends, families, and ordinary intellectual and emotional capacities. But one very heavy person is an anencephalic with no brain beyond the primitive 'lizard' brain required to keep the lungs functionng and the heart pumping. It cannot experience anything about its environment; it has no hopes, plans, dreams, or ambitions; it has no friends; it can never contribute anything to society -- but it does look approximately human and has human DNA.

 

Now to keep this boat from sinking, one person has to be thrown overboard. Is there any question but that the person you would select to save the other six would be the anencephalic? Of course not.

 

But now apply that insight to the larger scale real-world context. We know that six lives can be saved by organ transplants for every one anencephalic person raised in an organ farm and deliberately sacrificed after reaching an appropriate size to provide donor organs. Do we let all six of those real, ordinary people needing organ transplants die so that that one anencephalic can continue with its unaware existence? Or do we regard the world as what it really is -- one giant lifeboat in which the continued existence of the anencephalic sequesters six life-saving organs from availability for transplant?

[imatfaal]

But to construct an ethos based on extreme hypotheticals is mis-guided. We avoid using hard cases in the law - hard cases make bad law and we shouldn't make ethical judgments based upon a fictitious scenario that only really avails itself of one solution. I prefer to act and think of myself as someone who does not reduce others to numbers within a benthamite calculus - the search must be for eudaimonia not for felix

 

 

BTW: I am a graduate of gower street and owe a lot to Bentham and his cohorts (and enemies) in re-creating London as a city with universities - but I cannot stand some of his work. I will give him a nod on your behalf next week if I pass through UCL .

[Marat]

I think sometimes extreme cases can help clarify the salient features of a situation for analysis, especially when they are obscured by the aesthetic revulsion most people feel for various life-saving medical interventions. But keep in mind that there was ethical outrage at the first heart transplant because moving such a sacred organ as that around was just considered too unsettling, and yet now, with practice, no one objects. In the 19th century there also was considerable objection to the use of anesthesia during childbirth because it was 'natural' and 'intended by God' that women suffer during this process. Vaccination was also ethically controversial during the late 18th century, and Kant once even said that it was an immoral violation of the sacredness of the body for women to sell their hair for wig-making. My general rule is: romanticist, intuitive, religious, touchy-feely aesthetics about what is proper should play no role where human life and human suffering are at stake.

 

With respect to Bentham, I think it is a pity that his body is no longer on display at University College. Since he once recommended that dead people be preserved as posed in public as statues, I think he would find the banishment of his body from public display to be a great waste of an otherwise usefully entertaining object.

 

His rejection of legally entrenched rights as 'nonsense on stilts,' however, would make the University of London LLM course devoted entirely to Bentham's philosophy of law a very low scoring program of studies on his fellific calculus.