This morning’s New York Times has a well-done overview of the history of organ transplantation, while avoiding most of the ethical issues involved. In the span of five decades, surgeons have learned how to transplant virtually every organ in the human body. It’s amazing and more than a little frightening. And not just to the antivivisectionists.
The main problem related to organ transplantation has always been, and remains, rejection of the transplanted organ. The body perceives a transplanted organ as a foreign substance and sets about to get rid of it as quickly as possible. As a result, immunosuppressive drugs are required to artificially lower the immune system in order to prevent organ rejection. This, of course, brings on its own set of nasty problems. A human doesn’t stay well for long without a healthy immune system. The medical community discovered, quite accidentally, that they had been overprescribing immunosuppressants for years. Current leading edge research in the area of mixed chimerism—tolerance of the transplanted organ without immunosuppressive drugs—shows some promise, but at this point it’s still trial-and-error, with a small error resulting in a devastating rejection. The risks associated with long-term use of immunosuppressive drugs remains largely unknown.
Another serious problem with organ transplantation is chronic rejection. Nearly half of all cadaveric donor organs wear out and the medical community has so far failed to understand this phenomenon.
0 responses. Comments closed for this article.