Doctors Xiaoping Ren and Sergio Canavero now plan to do their first human head transplant(s) in Harbin using Chinese bodies and heads within a year. They've already done the procedure on rats, which all died within a few days, and at least one monkey. They say the monkey was euthanized within a day for "ethical reasons". What might those reasons have been? Would they also euthanize a human if need be? Or would that be murder? Most respected surgeons advise against doing this. Are these Doctors ghouls or heroes? It would seem to me that the leadership in China would not want this kind of experimental science done here.
Can you please tell us the source of the news? You should know that euthanasia is illegal in China and the common practice of treating dying people in Chinese hospitals is to prolong the patient's life and alleviate his pain if possible. If a doctor take any measure to accelerate a patient's death, he will end up in jail.
Just do a quick Yahoo or Google news search for "Head Transplant China" and you'll see numerous Western media covering the story: Newsweek, The Independent, CNET, Discovery News, The Scientist, etc. Their recent work at Harbin Medical University was on rats and has been published by CNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics*: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/cns.12700/full
Last year they claimed they had a Russian volunteer who wanted to be first, but now they have decided on Chinese patients (death row inmates???)
*I'm immediately skeptical of the integrity and professionalism of this
CNS journal!
Isn't a head transplant really just a body transplant?
Can you choose whoever's head you want, or do you just get what you're given?
Would Rachel Dolezal want a black body? Bruce Jenner a woman's body? Stephen Hawking? Christopher Reeves? Marie Antionette? Unfortunately, the doctor's will decide base on available donors.
Which came first? the head or the body
I have understood that the (original) volunteer was paralyzed or otherwise not functioning from neck down, and I assume the other volunteer would be the other way (braindead).
So I would think that the decision is made by the one with working brain, so head comes before body.
If they were to succeed with this it would be HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
