Many know that the first gift of Prometheus to humanity was fire. Fewer know that his second gift was blind hope. International value surveyor Ronald Inglehart concluded that happiness depends less on current status than on hope for the future.
Many who are facing death without any standard therapy to save them, are anxious to try a Hail Mary experiment–a potential therapy with many risks, but with a possible path forward, with hope.
A libertarian or classical liberal says that they have the right to choose hope.
In the concluding passages quoted below it is easy to sense the hope that the pig kidney transplant gave Tawana Looney.
(p. A18) A 53-year-old Alabama woman with kidney failure who waited eight years for an organ transplant has received a kidney harvested from a genetically modified pig, NYU Langone Health surgeons announced on Tuesday [Dec. 17, 2024].
The patient, Towana Looney, went into surgery just before Thanksgiving. She was in better health than others who have received porcine organs to date and left the hospital 11 days after the procedure.
. . .
Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, co-led the surgery with Dr. Jayme Locke, a transplant surgeon who applied two years ago for approval from the Food and Drug Administration to perform the operation for Ms. Looney.
. . .
The experimental procedure was approved by the Food and Drug Administration under its expanded access or compassionate use program, which allows unapproved products to be used when patients have life threatening conditions.
. . .
About two years ago, Dr. Locke contacted Ms. Looney. Dr. Locke was intent on finding better solutions for patients with kidney failure, which is rampant in Alabama and disproportionately affects the state’s Black residents.
It was the beginning of a conversation that spanned nearly two years while the physician sought special F.D.A. permission to do the xenotransplant on Ms. Looney, who was eager to get started.
“I said, ‘OK, where do I sign?’” Ms. Looney recalled.
“But she said, ‘This is new territory. This is new ground. I don’t know what might happen, and a lot of things could go wrong here.’ I said, ‘OK, when are we going to do it?’ And she went through all the if’s and and’s and what might happen again.”
The dialogue continued on and off for months. “We talked every day, and every day we talked she said, ‘Are you sure?’ And I said, ‘I’m positive. My mind is made up,’” Ms. Looney said.
Last month, while Ms. Looney was sitting in her dialysis chair during her morning treatment, her phone rang. It was Dr. Locke, who asked, “How do you feel about flying up to New York?”
Dr. Locke explained that she would do the surgery with Dr. Montgomery, the mentor who trained her.
“I said, ‘But what about Christmas? What about Thanksgiving?’ ” Ms. Looney said.
“She said, ‘It is going to be the best Christmas present you ever got.’ I said, ‘Yes, ma’am, it is.’”
For the full story see:
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Dec. 17, 2024, and has the title “Alabama Woman Receives Nation’s Third Pig Kidney Transplant.”)