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Xenotransplantation is one of the newest issues in the ongoing social
movement protesting the exploitation of animals for human use in ways that can
be cruel and inhumane. To lay the groundwork for pig organ-to-human
transplants, xenotransplantation researchers and regulatory agencies agree pig
organ transplants must first show survival rates of three to six months in
nonhuman primates. Thousands of monkeys, chimpanzees and baboons have been
experimented on and killed in the course of this cross-species transplant
research (see timeline). In addition, pig-to-human
xenotransplantation requires breeding genetically modified pigs, raising them
in special conditions, and killing them to harvest their organs. Here is a
collection of material which explores the animal welfare and rights issues
raised by xenotransplantation.
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These documents, detailing pig organ transplant experiments on baboons and
monkeys, outraged animal welfare groups, especially in Britain, who say they
reveal horrible animal suffering. The controversy was a factor in the decision
by Imutran, the company funding the experiments, to shut down its operations in
the UK and move to North America. Here's a summary of the controversy, a
British newspaper's reporting on the Imutran material, and two pages from the
leaked documents--pages FRONTLINE obtained from an American source.
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He is Director of Uncaged Campaigns, a British animal rights group which received the Imutran internal documents in the spring of 2000 and
published them on the Internet. Imutran subsequently obtained a British court
injunction against Lyons and Uncaged for breach of confidentiality and
copyright violation. Uncaged removed the documents from the Internet and was
prohibited from republishing or discussing them. However, Lyons can refer to
what was reported about the documents in one published, and highly critical
account by the British newspaper the Daily Express,
which also obtained the leaked material.
Thus, in FRONTLINE's program "Organ Farm," Lyons discusses a particular baboon
which had a piglet heart transplanted into its neck and for several days was
observed holding the heart, which was swollen and seeping blood and pus as a
result of the infections from the wound The animal also suffered body tremors,
vomiting, diarrhea. All of this is reported in the Daily Express article.
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In these excerpts from FRONTLINE's interviews with xenotransplant doctors and
researchers, they discuss their belief in the critical need to use pigs and
nonhuman primates in xenotransplantation and other medical research.
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Here are three short sections from Organ Farm, a book which draws on the
research and reporting for Carlton TV/FRONTLINE's program "Organ Farm." These
excerpts present statistics on monkeys and baboons used in xeno experiments in
the UK; a brief summary of what the book calls "grisly procedures" done on the
animals; why animal rights groups say xenotransplantation is a particular cause
of concern; and why pigs offer "the most hopeful option" as source animals for
xenotransplantation.
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He is Executive Director of the Animal Protection Institute and a member of the
U.S. Secretary's Advisory Committee on Xenotransplantation. He discusses the
ethical issues involved in using animals in medical research and why, in
contrast to Britain, using animals for xenotransplantation hasn't triggered
much popular outrage in the United States.
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Stephen Wise, a lawyer who has taught animal rights law for over two decades
and is the author of Rattling the Cage, joins with Jane Goodall, a
renowned authority on chimpanzees, to explain to the American Bar Association why they believe a new, more
enlightened attitude concerning humans' moral relationship with animals is
justified, and why fundamental legal rights should be extended to nonhuman
primates.
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