A sensible alternative to xenotransplants by Alan H. Berger
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:
Transplanting vital organs has become a rela-
tively common medical procedure, readily accepted by
the public, with about 12,000 such operations performed
each year in the United States. Patients who need organ
transplants can sign on to the waiting list of the United
Network for Organ Sharing, a Richmond, Virginia, non-
profit group that under a federal contract allocates organs
nationally. But being listed does not guarantee receiving
an organ.
In 1993, of 50,169 patients who registered with
UNOS, 2,887 died while waiting to receive donor
organs. Of 7,039 candidates for liver transplants, 558
died waiting for a suitable liver. Nationally, mortality on
transplant lists is 8% for liver, 12.2% for heart, and 3.8%
for kidney.
These deaths occur because only about one per-
son in five has consented to donate organs at death. Thus
a chronic shortage of healthy human organs has led many
transplant centers to consider using substitute organs from
sheep, pigs, and nonhuman primates.