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Posted on 12/03/2005 6:18:54 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
Bailey's account of how he cared for the first three newborn human-to-human heart-transplant patients was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, October 9, 1986. Accompanying the article was an editorial congratulating Bailey and his staff for their successes. The editorial was written by scientists from Stanford University School of Medicine.
In November, 1986, the California Legislature approved Resolution No. 481, honoring Bailey and his associates, in recognition of the one-year anniversary of the first successful newborn-heart transplant, on a patient named "Baby Moses." (It is firmly believed that there would not have been a "Baby Moses" had there not been a Baby Fae. Both the donor and recipient were referred to Loma Linda because of the widespread publicity on Baby Fae. The publicity on "Baby Moses" then made the scientific community and the public aware that newborn-heart transplantation was possible.)
Dr. Sandra Nehlsen-Cannarella, Baby Fae's immunologist, accepted an invitation to join the faculty of Loma Linda University School of Medicine. On March 1, 1985, she opened Loma Linda University's Immunology Center, where she directs both clinical and research laboratories involved in the immunology of transplantation and maternal-fetal compatibility.
Baby Fae's daring surgery was a landmark case. It has become a reference point in the public's awareness of hypoplastic left-heart syndrome and the serious efforts being made to save doomed babies. It became the cornerstone of a successful, international, infant-to-infant heart-transplant program begun in Loma Linda about a year later. Baby Fae struck a uniquely human chord in most people: the capacity to hope, and to cheer those who take great risks to help one little person.
Plus, it was a team that went through this experience and not a single doctor.
The reason they tried an animal heart on Baby Fae was that there simply were not enough infant-sized hearts for all the babies who needed them. Who would have thought that it was REALLY because a Seventh-Day Adventist was not properly deferential to the Evo-god? Looks like we have a new species of primate...and they evolved their own tinfoil hats.
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I know nothing of the Baby Fae affair nor do I particularly care. You disputed From many - one's choice of source through claims of potential bias and a bit of guilt by association; I simply returned the favour.
Is that what I said?
"Is there something in their theology that approves of baboons and doesn't care for chimpanzees?"
Did I say or imply they did?
Do you wish to compare the PETA crowd with Loma Linda University Medical Center any further?
Yeah, that'll do too.
Life is a fatal condition.
The good doctor appears not to be on record as trying to obtain a human heart.
Sorry, not my standard of medical practice.
And how is any of what you quoted relvant to failing to attempt to obtain a human heart or even a chimpanzeeheart?
I detest PETA because they put animals above people and if they had their way an enormous amount of solid research would never happen.
Nevertheless the article is backe by solid refs including one to the quote.
6. Gould SJ: The heart of erminology What has an abstruse debate over evolutionary logic got to do with Baby Fa[e]? Natural History 1988;97:24.
I consider this a reputable source.
You seem to go for a lot of guilt by association. I don't.
As it happens most public libraries, and my basement library have complete sets of Natural History Magazine, going back pretty far.
I'll check out Gould's sources when I get a chance.
Still, he entered into a very difficult ethical minefield. Why not throw a Hail Mary? This leads many bright professionals into folly. At Bailey's time, hopes ran so high for transplants--and while some of those hopes have borne fruit, intractible long-term difficulties for even the most successful human-to-human are the biggest problem at the forefront right now.
That, and obtaining enough organs for transplant.
Animals presented a hope in the seventies and eighties--because you can keep a baboon alive in the basement of the hospital to harvest when you need it, which means when all hope for an alternative has disappeared. The key was figuring out how to make it work.
Chimpanzees are and were endangered species, and for the most part unobtainable. I expect that Bailey used a baboon heart because it was the best thing he had available. If he shrugged off the pieties of the evos--well, surgeons as a breed tend to have egos of their own.
I take it you don't like to read things or make judgements from what occurs. Read the link you might find the reasoning for the choice made.
This is all guessing. What is available is the event and what the University says was the history of the decision. It was not made by a single person. The important point was that the heart was not rejected. The first chimp transplant didn't last a day. Of course, that was probably not due to rejection, but was another chimp attempt made by anyone?
The reason they use a baboon heart was because the doctor did not have the smarts to use a chimp nor the honor to first look for a human.
Yeah, human heart would be hard to get so he didn't try.
That's your answer? Because there are grounds for cynicism we should lower academic standards? Shouldn't this rather be a reason to RAISE standards? Or did you just not want to answer the question at all?
Add me to the grok list.
I think we need to find someone a little more reliable than me to run a grok list. I'm not able to be here every day.
I concede, you win
No problem, we'll do a virtual ping list, like the virtual ignore list (really need that one lately!).
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