What do you see as the key ethical issues being raised by xenotransplantation?
We have to distinguish issues that are common to, to xenotransplantation and many other areas of advance and ones that are really distinctive for xenotransplantation. Let’s start with issues that are distinctive for xenotransplantation. The one that we’ve heard the most about internationally is the potential risk to third parties. This is of course on the public’s mind. We now know that HIV was transmitted to people, through a variation on an agent that came from animals, but we’re hearing all about Europe mad cow disease and its effect on people and industry What we now see as distinctive is the following: Most medical research and most medical treatment involves a tradeoff of risks and benefits. That there are risks and benefits to the same person, the patient, and the whole focus of medical ethics has been on drawing attention to that and providing informed consent to that tradeoff. Xenotransplantation has a different component. The benefits and risks are again to a patient. But the
