Pig lung transplanted into a human

Medical significance & current state

• Thread notes the lung xenotransplant quickly failed: severe edema within 24 hours, antibody-mediated rejection by days 3–6, primary graft dysfunction by 72 hours, only partial recovery by day 9.
• Commenters stress this is still an important early step, comparing it to early human heart transplants that only extended life by days or weeks, and the more recent pig heart recipient who survived about two months.
• Reminder that recipients in such trials are typically already critically ill.

Genetic modification & future directions

• Ongoing work aims to CRISPR-edit pigs to be more “transplant-compatible,” reducing rejection and ideally lifelong immunosuppression.
• Some see xenotransplantation as a bridge until better solutions (like lab-grown organs) mature.

Religion, law, and ethics

• Islamic perspective: a jurisprudential rule “necessities permit the prohibited” is cited; many would allow pig organs if life-saving.
• One minority view speculates that pigs’ medical utility could be a reason their meat is forbidden.
• Jewish law: “pikuach nefesh” (preserving life) generally overrides ritual prohibitions; examples include breaking Sabbath for urgent care, with discussion of “loopholes” and use of non-Jews to perform prohibited tasks.
• Debate over whether such legal workarounds are sincere faith practice or “mental gymnastics.”

Zoonosis and public-health risk

• One line of argument: risk of cross-species pathogen transfer (“xenozoonosis”) could outweigh benefits; citation to literature on real, not just theoretical, risks.
• Others reply that for dying patients this is an acceptable last-resort risk, and that the broader risk to humanity is unclear.

Organ donation & kidney-transplant debate

• Discussion branches into living kidney donation vs post-mortem donation.
• Some argue donation “saves lives” by extending lifespan and quality of life versus dialysis; others insist it mostly improves quality, not absolute survival, and note transplant risks and economic incentives around dialysis and transplantation.

Brain-dead subjects, China vs US regulation

• Several commenters highlight China’s use of brain-dead patients as “living cadavers” for xenotransplant experiments, seeing it as a way to move faster than US research constrained by ethics and regulation.
• Others note the US has also done pig-organ work in brain-dead patients.
• Concerns: reliability of brain-death determination, adherence to protocols, and consent processes.

Sci-fi, culture & 3D-printed organs

• Multiple pop culture references (Seinfeld “pigman,” Star Trek brain replacement plots, “hyperpigs” and “Pigoons” in fiction).
• Some lament the slower-than-promised progress of 3D-printed organs.
• A detailed comment describes organoids: successful at small scale and used in pharma, but underfunded and not yet engineered to full-organ size, with key labs and people having moved on.