
The Plan to Save a Life by Head Transplant - mmastrac
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/09/the-audacious-plan-to-save-this-mans-life-by-transplanting-his-head/492755/?single_page=true
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broahmed
"...Christiaan Barnard, a South African who performed the first human heart
transplant, technically killed the first donor, a brain-dead woman, by taking
her off life support without her family’s permission and giving her an
injection of potassium to render her legally dead."

I was surprised to read this and naturally did some googling. I couldn't find
anything about Christiaan Barnard taking the donor off of life support without
her family's permission. Anyone know of evidence for this statement?

~~~
grahamel
It's on Denise Darvall's (the donor) wikipedia page,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Darvall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Darvall)

~~~
animal531
Based on that text it seems like a reasonable course of action.

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matt_morgan
It should really be called a "body transplant."

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jwn
The article does mention that, but I don't think simply defining the base of
the transplant as the section with the most mass accurately describes the
situation. What part of the body defines a person's identity? Is it the head,
or the rest of the body? I can see a case where the brain is considered the
center of mass (from an operation standpoint).

~~~
cthulhujr
Can it be defined as what is being replaced and discarded? When you have a
heart transplant, they replace the heart with a new one and discard the old
heart. In this case, they're discarding the body, so I see it as a body
transplant. As others have noted, mass is meaningless in this context.

Edit: The sources on wikipedia's
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant)
article all call it a head transplant... so, I assume people more
knowledgeable than I on the topic have already "talked it out". Head
transplant it is!

~~~
danilocesar
They also "discard" the dead head... So, I guess no.

~~~
justinlardinois
What's discarded from the donor doesn't really mean much. We don't consider
what parts of organ donors' bodies aren't used.

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sevenless
Reading all those different, excruciatingly difficult surgical steps it sounds
like it would be just about easier to give him a robot body, Futurama-Nixon
style.

~~~
maxerickson
The head transplant boils down to 3 problems: microsurgery, nerve regeneration
and immunotherapy. Each of which is incredibly complicated, but the
understanding is there to do things like full hand transplants (they don't
restore full function, but the doctors apparently believe them to be useful
enough to be ethical).

We have no idea how to artificially provide all the functions that the body
carries out. We have some baby steps like dialysis, but how would the life
support system deal with infections? Or take a look at the problems that
various heart assist systems have with clotting and coagulation (blood likes
to stick to the artificial surfaces).

~~~
pmoriarty
_" the doctors apparently believe them to be useful enough to be ethical"_

I don't think ethics works that way. Just because something is very useful
doesn't necessarily mean that it's ethical.

Nuclear weapons are a case in point. Few will deny that they're very useful
and effective weapons, but many believe their use to be unethical, no matter
how useful they are.

Chemical and biological weapons, and cluster bombs are other similar examples.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Fortunately we all understood this to be in the context of performing a
medical operation.

~~~
pmoriarty
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Are you saying that
usefulness trumps ethics in medicine but not in warfare? If so, why do you
think that?

~~~
Gracana
Of course it doesn't "trump ethics." In the context of a hand transplant, the
likelihood of the procedure resulting in a useful hand is a large part of
deciding whether or not it's ethical. The likelihood of improved quality of
life is weighed against the likelihood of pain and complications.

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1812Overture
Seems like it would be a good idea to try this with a brain-dead head first to
look for issues of tissue rejection etc before trying this on living person.

~~~
sokoloff
From the article: Ren also wants to choreograph the surgery with cadavers and,
as a final test, swap the heads of two brain-dead donors.

~~~
1812Overture
Thanks, must have missed that.

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Matt_Mickiewicz
Anybody else find the photo of the russian dog grafted onto the back for
another disturbing?

~~~
justbees
I want to know if anyone did NOT find it disturbing. So, yes, I found it
disturbing. Related -> a cool synchronicity happened to me while reading this
article. The Roky Erikson song Two-Headed Dog came on and I realized it must
be referencing that experiment!

~~~
Joeboy
Hah, I experienced no such synchronicity but was motivated to put it on
anyway.

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kilroy123
How is this procedure remotely legal? This man undergoing this "surgery" has
virtually a 100% chance of dying and being killed in the process.

I'm baffled by this, and can only assume it's all a big publicity stunt by the
doctor.

~~~
imagist
He has virtually a 100% chance of dying with or without the surgery.

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maxxxxx
I wonder how a different body will affect the personality of the person. With
different hormone levels you probably have different emotions.

~~~
smellf
The article goes into this. Not only the hormones that come from the body, but
also the donor body's gut flora and differing physicality from the host's
would in some ways make it a new, third person who emerges from the operating
room.

~~~
maxxxxx
I am at work so I could only skim the article. I am unsure about the ethics
and I doubt they will succeed but it's certainly very interesting.

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shmerl
Sounds like Professor Dowell's Head[1].

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Dowell's_Head](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Dowell's_Head)

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Raphmedia
I can't wait to order a nice fit dead body and transplant my head on it.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
You will completely ruin that body in 2 months and have to transplant yourself
on another fit body to maintain the fitness.

On the other hand, if your head gets chopped down and thrown in garbage, and
fit person's head is put on, your body will live longer than it would right
now with you.

~~~
Raphmedia
Hey, hey, I take care of my mediocre body. I simply want the 6ft tall, blond
haired, blue eyed model. Bonus points if you can add underwater breathing and
fit in electric windows.

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irrational
Russians doing a head transplant? Why are they remaking that x-files movie?

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sxcurry
I really wish they would quit torturing animals for this kind of garbage. If
people are so desperate to live on, why not proceed directly to human
experiments?

~~~
MOARDONGZPLZ
I see where you're coming from. One of my best friends does spinal cord
research to repair severed spinal cords. This involves damaging the spinal
cords of primates. It makes me feel uneasy, but there really is no other way
and certainly experimenting on a person is less ethical than experimenting on
an animal. No one wants to harm the animal.

~~~
euyyn
Experimenting on the animal before doing it on the person is understandable.
But it raises more ethical concerns, not fewer, due to the fact that the
animal cannot possibly consent to the experiment.

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duncan_bayne
I think that's an example of category error. Animals aren't capable of consent
because they aren't capable of comprehending either consent, or the experiment
in question. If they were, they'd be human by any sensible definition.

To rely on consent to perform animal experiments is like relying on my
sandwich to consent to me eating it. It's just not a thing sandwiches are
capable of doing.

~~~
euyyn
Nobody relies on consent to perform animal experiments, because animals can't
consent, so I'm not sure where you're trying to go with that.

Unlike the sandwich you're eating, animals are capable of suffering, which is
why experimenting with them raises ethical issues to start with.

Some people are incapable of comprehending consent, and are incapable of
comprehending scientific experiments. Those people can't be subjects of
experiments, precisely for that reason. You seem to be arguing for the
opposite.

