Head transplant
Finally, the risk of systematic neuropathic pain is high and as of 2017[update] had largely been unaddressed in research.
[1][2] Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon who had developed improved surgical methods to connect blood vessels in the context of organ transplantation.
[2] In 1954, Vladimir Demikhov, a Soviet surgeon who had done important work to improve coronary bypass surgery, performed an experiment in which he grafted a dog's head and upper body including the front legs, onto another dog; the effort was focused on how to provide blood supply to the donor head and upper body and not on grafting the nervous systems.
[5][6] In 2016, he announced his plans to do the procedure on Valeriy Spiridonov, a disabled Russian software engineer suffering from spinal muscular atrophy, who volunteered for the surgery.
[8] In 2015, Ren published work in which he cut off the heads of mice but left the brain stem in place, and then connected the vasculature of the donor head to the recipient body; this work was an effort to address whether it was possible to keep the body of the recipient animal alive without life support.
[1] In 2016, Ren and Canavero published a review of attempted as well as possible neuroprotection strategies that they said should be researched for potential use in a head transplantation procedure; they discussed various protocols for connecting the vasculature, the use of various levels of hypothermia, the use of blood substitutes, and the possibility of using hydrogen sulfide as a neuroprotective agent.
Those who promote such claims and who would subject any human being to unproven cruel surgery merit not headlines but only contempt and condemnation.
[11] The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals described White's experiments as "epitomizing the crude, cruel vivisection industry".
[2] The medical ethics of each of these procedures was extensively discussed and worked out before clinical experimental and regular usage began.
[2] With regard to head transplantation, there had been little formal ethical discussion published in the literature and little dialogue among stakeholders as of 2017[update]; the plans of Canavero were well ahead of society's and the medical establishment's readiness or acceptance.
[2] There was no accepted protocol for conducting the procedure to justify the risk to the people involved, methods of obtaining informed consent were unclear, especially for the person whose body would be used; issues of desperation render the truly informed consent of a head donor questionable.
Because grafting the head onto the spinal cord was not possible at that time, the only feasible procedure would be one where the head was only connected to the blood supply of the donor body, leaving the person completely paralyzed, with the accompanying limited quality of life and high societal cost to maintain.
While concerns were raised about whether recipients of a face transplant and their social circle would have difficulty adjusting, studies as of 2017[update] had found that disruptions had been minimal.
