Is this compassionate use or experimentation on a dying patient for the future benefit of the rest of us? I’m fine with the latter, if consensual. But only if we call it what it is.
First generation transplants are always both. David would have died soon without this (he's quite likely to die soon with it too, unfortunately, if this goes anything like other first of a kind transplant receivers). Desperate people accept desperate measures, and the hope that it may teach us how to save others helps too.
It's a way to potentially prolong a terminally ill patients life with an experimental technique, potentially advancing medical science in doing so. I fail to see why this should be cast in a negative light.
That is what a clinical trial is. There is now other way. Although with organs-on-a-chip we are working on at least getting the animal testing stages confined to a minimum. Over time we may reduce the risk to first recipients of new tech using these new technologies. Perhaps even digital models may at somepoint start playing a role. But until we have digital models, this is what we have. And it does seem to work well in this case.
Yes. No matter what the treatment might be, someone always has to be the first human it's tried on.
Even if we did have good digital simulations, someone would still have to be the first human to get it "for real". That's just the nature of things. Someone has to be the first patient of a new heart surgeon. Someone has to be the first person to hire a newly-minted PE to design a bridge that might fail and kill thousands. And so on.
We mitigate these risks to the best of our ability by ensuring rigorous training of doctors and PEs, and stuff like animal testing and computer simulations, but someone still has to be first.
It sounds like this patient was well aware of the risks, and opted to get the procedure since otherwise his death would be a certainty.
It is quite clear since the first article on this topic that the recipient is very aware of the potential and risks. If I may say, he sounds like he geeks out about it. He had previously received a pig heart valve which kept him alive a long time. This probably affects his perceptions positively too.
From everything I read it was consensual. But that raises a larger moral question. Is it really consent if you're about to die? I think that almost anyone given the choice to either die or get a pig heart will choose the latter, there's a good chance you will die if you get the transplant but there is a 100% chance that you will die if you don't.
I don't think that is necessarily true - people reject potentially lifesaving treatments all the time for many different reasons. Yes, the desire to live is very strong in us, but it's not infinite.
Since it's consent to do the best option available and he wasn't put into the position of needing the help by the ones offering it I don't think it's much of a moral issue. Usually the moral problems come when less than ideal alternatives are proposed or people are forced into a situation where they otherwise wouldn't have had to choose. I.e. conflict of interest stuff from the ones proposing to get consent to try to help.
The guy would have died pretty soon without the procedure. If the choice is between dying for sure in a few weeks, or maybe dying in a few weeks but maybe not dying for another few years.... I'll take the 2nd option.
