# The pig-heart transplant story is even more interesting than I expected!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pig-heart-transplant-story-is-even-more-interesting-than-i-expected/957568>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [January 11, 2022, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pig-heart-transplant-story-is-even-more-interesting-than-i-expected/957568 "2022-01-11T04:43:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\
**Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pig-heart-transplant-story-is-even-more-interesting-than-i-expected/957568/21 "2022-05-06T22:59:36Z")

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CMV is a very common cause of death, or at least disease, in immunosuppressed people, be it of human or animal origin.

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**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2024, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pig-heart-transplant-story-is-even-more-interesting-than-i-expected/957568/22 "2024-03-21T22:55:34Z")

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Bumping this thread due to a news story about someone getting a similarly modified pig kidney, and also, “the heart rejected him” has happened. It’s called graft vs. host disease, and is most common in bone marrow and stem cell transplantation, but it’s happened with solid organs too.

Back in the early days of organ transplants, animal kidneys, mostly from chimpanzees, were tried, with disastrous results, and the Baby Fae story will be 40 years old this fall.

> **[Baby Fae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Fae)**
>
> Stephanie Fae Beauclair (October 14, 1984 – November 15, 1984), better known as Baby Fae, was an American infant born in 1984 with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. She became the first infant subject of a xenotransplant procedure and first successful infant heart transplant, receiving the heart of a baboon. Though she died within a month of the procedure, she lived weeks longer than any previous recipient of a non-human heart.
> The procedure, performed by Leonard Lee Bailey at Loma Linda Univers...

[https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/21/health/pig-kidney-transplant-living-person/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/21/health/pig-kidney-transplant-living-person/index.html)

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**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2024, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pig-heart-transplant-story-is-even-more-interesting-than-i-expected/957568/23 "2024-03-21T23:16:52Z")

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I need a kidney, but I like bacon too much to go this far.

(Seriously I’m not a good candidate, I hope this person has a great outcome. There is a gigantic backlog list of folks waiting on kidney transplant)

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