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First attempt at a "Human Head Transplant" scheduled to occur this month

Danger

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in This aint sports talk!

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LETSGOBROWNIES

LETSGOBROWNIES

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1 hour ago, Jlowe22 said:

Then it is an extremely poor estimation.  As recently as May, all I found is partial recovery of motor function in some mice with severed spinal cords.  Successfully repairing severed spinal cords in humans should be accomplished long before any head transplant takes place.

And even then, mice are a completely different story.  You can remove the entire frontal lobe of a mouse and still be left with a creature that crawls around and sniffs out food.

Im not the only one skeptical of these two doctors, there are plenty of people a lot smarter than me that don't even think this is a legitimate medical procedure.

Im no expert, but I have not seen any scientific peer reviewed papers that suggest this operation is close to becoming feasible, much less carry a 90% success rate.  If you have access to some, then please share them with me because I am very interested in reading them.

I'm not advocating it, I'm just saying all parties are informed of the risks and this is a last ditch/experimental effort.

The odds should be pretty evident considering it's never been attempted and this is the only guy who'll even try it.  The spitballed guesstimate by the surgeon is fairly irrelevant.  Of course he's confident, everyone who's ever tried anything incredible seemed absurdly confident/borderline insane.

I don't disagree this poor fella probably dies, but how much information is gained through his death, even if the procedure fails?  If I had the opportunity to contribute to the greater good at the expense of a short bit of a potentially terrible quality of life, I may do the same. Tip of the cap to the fella risking everything and the MD willing to potentially risk his career.  

The only part I disagree with is that you seem to think this patient is some poor schmuck planning his next vaca 6 weeks after surgery because his MD has blindly told him cutting off his head will prolly work. I can guarantee you that literally every other MD this dude had seen has advocated against this and explained why, but here we are.

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Jlowe22

Jlowe22

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2 hours ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I'm not advocating it, I'm just saying all parties are informed of the risks and this is a last ditch/experimental effort.

The odds should be pretty evident considering it's never been attempted and this is the only guy who'll even try it.  The spitballed guesstimate by the surgeon is fairly irrelevant.  Of course he's confident, everyone who's ever tried anything incredible seemed absurdly confident/borderline insane.

I don't disagree this poor fella probably dies, but how much information is gained through his death, even if the procedure fails?  If I had the opportunity to contribute to the greater good at the expense of a short bit of a potentially terrible quality of life, I may do the same. Tip of the cap to the fella risking everything and the MD willing to potentially risk his career.  

The only part I disagree with is that you seem to think this patient is some poor schmuck planning his next vaca 6 weeks after surgery because his MD has blindly told him cutting off his head will prolly work. I can guarantee you that literally every other MD this dude had seen has advocated against this and explained why, but here we are.

Ok, but he should know this is basically suicide by doctor at best.   And I'm fine with that, if that is what he wants.  Death is nowhere near the worst thing that can happen to someone, and it's not even close to the worst thing that can come out of this surgery.  And this is what he should be told.

What if he wakes up from surgery, and not only remains paralyzed, but is now blind and deaf?  What if he regains some motor control but loses some higher brain function due to brain damage?  What if he psychologically cannot handle having someone else's body attached to his head?  And yes, we've seen cases of psychological rejection of a transplant, and this is an entire body.  He needs to know that not only are the chances of survival incredibly low, but if he somehow does wake back up, he has a very real chance of being far worse off than he was before.  What do you do in this scenario?  Put him out of his misery?  If it were me, I would hope someone would have the balls to kill me.

I mean, there is a reason this will probably take place in China, and a reason US and Europe wouldn't permit it.  If the patient knows fully the risk he is taking, then by all means go for it.  But there is good reason to believe he doesn't know fully the risk he is taking when his doctor is predicting a 90% chance of success.  This has deceitful written all over it.

 

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LETSGOBROWNIES

LETSGOBROWNIES

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1 hour ago, Jlowe22 said:

Ok, but he should know this is basically suicide by doctor at best.   And I'm fine with that, if that is what he wants.  Death is nowhere near the worst thing that can happen to someone, and it's not even close to the worst thing that can come out of this surgery.  And this is what he should be told.

What if he wakes up from surgery, and not only remains paralyzed, but is now blind and deaf?  What if he regains some motor control but loses some higher brain function due to brain damage?  What if he psychologically cannot handle having someone else's body attached to his head?  And yes, we've seen cases of psychological rejection of a transplant, and this is an entire body.  He needs to know that not only are the chances of survival incredibly low, but if he somehow does wake back up, he has a very real chance of being far worse off than he was before.  What do you do in this scenario?  Put him out of his misery?  If it were me, I would hope someone would have the balls to kill me.

I mean, there is a reason this will probably take place in China, and a reason US and Europe wouldn't permit it.  If the patient knows fully the risk he is taking, then by all means go for it.  But there is good reason to believe he doesn't know fully the risk he is taking when his doctor is predicting a 90% chance of success.  This has deceitful written all over it.

 

To the first two points, I think most folks have an idea how this ends up.  If they transplant his head and he's still alive and has any cognitive ability or abilty to communicate at all, this would be arguably the greatest medical feat in our lifetime, even if it is a bit of a freak show.

To the last point, if you and I can deduce what this is, why can't he?  You seem to be questioning his understanding of risk without any real reason to do so other than looking at this and essentially saying "this is effin nuts, no human would agree to this unless they believe they will survive because the MD believes it and told them so and gave him good odds (which, again, aren't based in actual statistics, but a gut feeling)."

As someone who has been a part the process of getting informed consents plenty of times, I can assure you he will sign a paper stating he knows and accepts the risks, which include death as a possibility. No planned surgery is performed without them.

We can go round and round but there's not much else to say. Let's agree to disagree and wish this man and his surgeon the best of luck or at least a quick, painless end.

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Jlowe22

Jlowe22

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1 minute ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

To the last point, if you and I can deduce what this is, why can't he?  You seem to be questioning his understanding of risk without any real reason to do so other than looking at this and essentially saying "this is effin nuts, no human would agree to this unless they believe they will survive because the MD believes it and told them so and gave him good odds (which, again, aren't based in actual statistics, but a gut feeling)."

No, no, I'm saying that the doctor should be truthful with the risks involved and not claim a 90% success rate, when that number is absurdly high.  It doesn't matter whether or not the patient can deduce the risk himself, the Doctor should be clear with the risks, and not claim something that isn't true.  I guarantee you that there are people who believe that this procedure actually has a good chance of success.  Yes, they're morons, but that doesn't make the doctor right to claim such a thing. It actually makes it worse.  Especially with a procedure like this, that actually has a good chance of giving the patient a fate worse than death.  

22 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

We can go round and round but there's not much else to say. Let's agree to disagree and wish this man and his surgeon the best of luck or at least a quick, painless end.

Fair enough.

 

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ET80

ET80

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On 12/13/2017 at 8:49 AM, domepatrol91 said:

Somewhere, @Tyty is sitting in a doctors waiting room with a line from a permanent marker dotted all the way around his neck, reading a 2 year old printing of Better Homes and Gardens. 

I feel as if this comment didn't get enough likes.

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