Head Transplants (Body Transplants?) Available 2017
Sept 13, 2015 18:49:20 GMT -5
Post by mosdub on Sept 13, 2015 18:49:20 GMT -5
Anyone see this? There are several articles about it. Thoughts? Questions? Concerns?
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/head-transplant-team-selected-for-controversial-operation-that-will-go-ahead-in-2017-10498627.html
Quote for those of you who hate clicking things:
"The likely date and location for the first-ever human head transplant have been set, after the controversial Italian doctor that will lead the surgery said that he has selected his team of surgeons.
Radical Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero has drawn fascination and criticism after he announced plans to cut off a man’s head and put it onto another body. Many had expected that the planned operation would probably never happen – but a team has now been appointed to lead the operation.
Canavero is hoping to complete the procedure – which will take 36-hours, and cost $11 million – by December 2017, according to Russia Today.
The transplant is likely to happen in China, with a team made up largely of doctors from the country, according to AFP. That is likely to raise worries about the already highly-controversial operation, since China has been criticised for using the organs of executed prisoners without their consent.
The procedure has already drawn widespread condemnation, from doctors who say that it is likely to kill the person undergoing it, and that if he does survive he will undergo something a "lot worse than death”.
Russian Valery Spiridonov has already been selected as the recipient of the new body. He suffers from the rare, genetic Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, which gradually wastes away his muscles.
During the procedure, the donor and patient will each have their head sliced off their body in a super-fast procedure. The transplanted parts will then be stuck together with glue and stitches.
Spiridinov will then be placed in a month-long coma and injected with drugs intended to stop the body and head from rejecting each other.
Since the procedure is unprecedented, apart from mixed results in dogs and monkeys, doctors are not sure what could happen during the surgery – or how Spiridinov is likely to be if and when he wakes up.
Ren Xiaoping, who will work with Canavero to try and attempt the procedure in the next two years, said that the team will only attempt it if research and tests show that it is likely to be successful.
The operation will probably happen in China, at the Harbin Medical University, according to reports."
ETA: fixed formatting