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How Animals Can Save Us: Life-Saving Pigs (Part 3 of 3)
Xenotransplantation
Last Updated: November 21, 2003

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- In the 1960s, surgeons experimented by transplanting chimpanzee organs into humans in need of an
organ transplant. In 1985, Baby Fae received a baboon heart and survived 20 days. Since then, doctors have continued to
look to animals as a source for organs, tissues and cells to treat various diseases, all with varying degrees of
success. Here's a look at the controversy surrounding cross-species transplant -- also known as xenotransplantation.

Dick Beyer has Parkinson's. "I move in slow motion," he tells Ivanhoe. Betsy Ray has diabetes. "I've got retinopathy in
my eyes," she says. "I have cataracts." George Jones has kidney failure "I guess if it wasn't for dialysis, I wouldn't
be here."

What do these diseases have in common? Some doctors predict pigs will cure them.

"The holy grail of all this is a pig whose organs are not recognized as pig organs but rather are seen essentially to
have tissues that our immune system thinks is human tissue," says Marlon Levy, M.D., a transplant surgeon at Baylor All
Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas.

Five years ago, Dr. Levy used pig livers to do the job two patients' livers could not. "The ending of this story is
that both of these patients are doing remarkably well today," he says.

But that's not enough to reassure activist Alix Fano.

"We know that since the early 1990s about 16 people have died in human xenotransplantation trials. There have been
patients in Parkinson's disease trials who have had pig cells injected into their brains who have come down with
malignant cancers," says Fano, who is Executive Director of the Campaign for Responsible Transplantation in New York.

But no research has been done to show a link, and scientists are expanding their research. Pig cells are now being
studied for strokes, epilepsy and Huntington's disease. And doctors from Mexico recently transplanted pig islet cells
into 12 diabetic children. Doctors say one is off insulin and the others reduced their insulin requirement by more than
60 percent. All this research gives Fano more reason to worry.

"We do know that patients who have been exposed to pig cells and tissues do have pig DNA circulating in their blood,"
says Fano, "And that means they most certainly have pig viruses in their blood as well." It's these viruses that
concern her most. "We're talking about putting the entire population at risk from a pig virus that could mutate and
spread and kill lots of other people."

Biotech companies are working to eliminate that. They're breeding pigs they say do not pass on the PERV virus --the one
deemed most dangerous to humans. "We know that at the end of the day if we're successful we'll do something really
important," says Elliot Lebowitz, Ph.D., who is President/CEO of Biotransplant Incorporated in Charlestown, Mass.

Betsy Todd, R.N., an infection control nurse in New York, also worries about the future. She says, "Retroviruses like
HIV or like PERV are by their very nature latent viruses. They take many years often before they can cause active
infection."

While it may be too early for species to share organs, researchers continue their work -- hoping to give patients a
second chance at life.

Dr. Levy says lack of funding remains the main reason the research is going so slowly. Researchers also say cloned pigs
may play an important role in xenotransplantation and this is even more controversial.

This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go
to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.

If you would like more information, please contact:

Marlon Levy, M.D.
Transplant Surgeon
Baylor All Saints Medical Center
(817) 922-4650

Last Updated: November 21, 2003

SOURCE: Ivanhoe Medical Alerts / HealthCentral
http://www.healthcentral.com/PrintFormat/PrintFullText2.cfm?id=8007378