Organ Transplantation - Biotechnology and Your Health: Pharmaceutical Applications - page 125

however, it became clear that nonhuman primates pose significant
medical, economic, and ethical problems as alternate sources for
organs. Transplants of organs from nonhuman primates would still
require the use of immunosuppressive drugs, perhaps at even higher
doses than are used for human-to-human transplants. Also, because
of our genetic similarity to other primates and because the immune
system has been turned off, any unknown virus or microorganism
that the organ harbored might jump to humans and cause serious
disease. There is strong evidence that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS,
originally moved from chimps to humans, so this concern cannot be
easily dismissed. Human-to-human transplants do carry the risk of
viral infections, but the viruses in question are known (hepatitis
viruses, HIV, and cytomegalovirus, among others) and donors can be
tested to rule out infections. An unknown virus that does not cause
illness in a nonhuman primate might infect a human organ recipient
and then go on to infect other people and cause serious human
disease. Economic and social factors have also discouraged the
idea of using nonhuman primates as organ donors. Nonhuman
primates are expensive to breed and care for, and some species are
endangered. Many people find the idea of sacrificing these close
animal “relatives” as organ sources morally unacceptable because
they are so similar to humans.
Stop and Consider
What factors have led researchers to explore xenotransplantation?
Successes and Failures of Primate Organ Transplants
There have been attempts to use nonhuman primates as tissue and
organ donors. In the 1960s, several surgeons transplanted kidneys
from baboons or chimps into humans, and the patients survived
only a few months. Born with a malformed heart, Baby Fae
received a baboon heart transplant in 1984. The procedure, her