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Pig-to-Human Heart Transplants Are Foolish and Wasteful: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
July 13, 2022

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

New York –

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding two brain-dead individuals who received genetically modified pig-heart transplants:

Moving ahead with pig-to-human heart transplant protocols as though this procedure would ever be viable is foolish and wasteful. So far, there has been just a single test case on a living human—and the man who received the heart of a supposedly virus-free pig lived just 47 days and got a cytomegalovirus along with the organ. Contrary to NYU Langone Health’s claims, there is no way to ensure that pigs are virus-free. 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.

For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

For Media: Contact PETA’s Media Response Team.
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“Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights?”

— Ingrid Newkirk, PETA Founder and co-author of Animalkind

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