Pig-to-Human Transplants Are Cruel and Dangerous: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
August 17, 2023

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding the transplantation of a kidney from a pig to a brain-dead individual at NYU Langone Health:

These experimenters are harming animals, exploiting a human who can’t speak for himself, and risking another pandemic. It’s impossible to ensure that organs from pigs do not harbor dangerous viruses. In a previous test case on a living human, the man who had received the heart of a supposedly virus-free pig lived for just 47 days and got a cytomegalovirus along with the organ. Every animal-to-human transplant represents hundreds of pigs’ lives and the risk of a new pandemic. Cleaning up the organ procurement business, which wastes as many as 28,000 organs annually, and enacting presumed consent laws would save human lives, spare animals, and protect society from dangerous pathogens that can easily jump from one species to another.

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