Science / Medicine : Pigs Seen as Organ Donors

Transplant doctors predict that pigs will become a main source of donor organs for people once the many technical problems of cross-species transplantation are resolved.

While primates such as chimpanzees and baboons might be a better match, pigs are cheaper, more plentiful and easier to breed, says Dr. Hugh Auchincloss Jr., assistant professor of surgery at Harvard University.

“What could change, I suppose, is that we could become better at making artificial organs than we are now. Then we wouldn’t need the animal organs. But I don’t see that as coming first,” Auchincloss said last week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Transplant Physicians.

Only 50 to 60 chimpanzees are available in any given year for all types of research, Auchincloss said. “It doesn’t make any sense to use chimpanzees because you’re going to make such a small impact in the well-being of humans. And you’ll make people so mad, because it is where they focus from the point of view of animal rights, understandably so,” he said.

“If you can eat the pig, I’m not sure you can’t transplant the liver,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota.