Another Death, Another Xenotransplant Failure: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
May 13, 2024

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding the death of the first living person to receive a kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig:

This latest death is another failure in a lost cause. How many more humans and other animals must die before we realize that xenotransplantation is, in every sense, a dead end? It’s too soon to know whether a virus was transmitted in this case, as happened in the recent transplant of a pig’s heart to a human, but we do know that xenotransplants have been a colossal failure for decades. Cleaning up the organ procurement business, which wastes as many as 28,000 organs annually; enacting presumed consent laws; and implementing PETA scientists’ Research Modernization Deal, which offers a plan for phasing out the use of animals, would actually save human lives.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.