-Caveat Lector-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1263000/1263758.stm
A controversial operation to transplant the
whole head of a monkey onto a different body
has proved a partial success.
The scientist behind it wants to do the same
thing to humans, but other members of the
scientific community have condemned the
experiments as "grotesque".
Professor Robert White, from Cleveland Ohio,
transplanted a whole monkey's head onto
another monkey's body, and the animal
survived for some time after the operation.
The professor told the BBC's Today programme
how he believes the operation is the next step
in the transplant world.
And he raised the possibility that it could be
used to treat people paralysed and unable to
use their limbs, and whose bodies, rather than
their brains, were diseased.
"People are dying today
who, if they had body
transplants, in the
spinal injury community
would remain alive."
He said that in the
experiment, his team
had been able to:
"transplant the brain as a separate organ into
an intact animal and maintain it in a viable, or
living situation for many days."
He added: "We've been able to retain the brain
in the skull, and in the head."
That, he said meant the monkey was
conscious, and that it could see, hear, taste
and smell because the nerves were left intact
in the head.
He admitted that it could appear "grotesque",
but said there had been ethical considerations
throughout the history of organ transplants.
"At each stage - kidney, heart, liver and so
forth - ethical considerations have been
considered, especially with the heart, which
was a major, major problem for many people
and scientists.
"And the brain, because of its uniqueness
poses a major, major ethical issue as far as the
public and even the profession is concerned."
'Scientifically misleading'
The arguments against head and brain
transplants were outlined by Dr Stephen Rose,
director of brain and behavioural research at
the Open University.
He said: "This is medical technology run
completely mad and out of all proportion to
what's needed.
"It's entirely misleading to suggest that a head
transplant or a brain transplant is actually
really still connected in anything except in
terms of blood stream to the body to which it
has been transplanted.
"It's not controlling or relating to that body in
any other sort of way."
He added: "It's scientifically misleading,
technically irrelevant and scientifically
irrelevant, and apart from anything else a
grotesque breach of any ethical consideration."
"It's a mystification to call it either a head
transplant or a brain transplant.
"All you're doing is keeping a severed head
alive in terms of the circulation from another
animal. It's not connected in any nervous
sense."
The issue of who someone who had received a
head transplant would "be" is extremely
complicated, said Professor Rose.
"Your person is largely embodied but not
entirely in your brain".
He added: "I cannot see any medical grounds
for doing this. I cannot see that scientifically
you would actually be able to regenerate the
nerves which could produce that sort of
control.
"And I think that the experiments are the sort
that are wholly unethical and inappropriate for
any possible reason."
He added that the way to help the quadriplegic
community was to work on research to help
spinal nerves regenerate.
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