The Campaign for Responsible Transplantation (CRT) has filed a petition with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) demanding a ban on transplanting organs from animals into humans.  The announcement was made in Boston on December 10 at a press conference held in the Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel where an industry-sponsored  conference promoting  xenotransplantation was simultaneously taking place.

HHS has implicitly authorized xenotransplant experiments by issuing guidelines for their performance.

The petition charges that

(1) The issuance of voluntary guidelines by HHS governing the transplantation of cells, tissues, and organs from animals to humans is in
violation of the Public Health Service Act.

(2) Before issuing the guidelines on xenotransplantation, HHS failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

According to the CRT executive summary, "HHS ignored the scientific evidence showing that xenotransplantation is dangerous and ineffective.  HHS also failed to adequately consider the legal, social, ethical and economical implications of xenotransplantation.  Instead, HHS issued the xenotransplantation guidelines despite scientific evidence demonstrating that the xenograft recipient will suffer significant harm.  Furthermore, the agency did not adequately consider how to protect the public from contracting novel animal viruses, how to deal with the issue of informed consent, or the large costs associated with xenotransplantation.  Therefore, HHS acted arbitrarily and capriciously by issuing the xenotransplantation guidelines without adequately considering these
issues."

In spite of exposing the human population in general to potentially  dangerous animal viruses, HHS also failed to prepare an environmental impact statement as required by NEPA.  This statement would have required the disclosure of alternative procedures. 

CRT was founded last spring by Alix Fano under the auspices of the Medical Research Modernization Committee.  The organization has operated on a shoestring budget on an entirely voluntary basis. Besides Ms Fano, the International Center for Technology Assessment in Washington DC has provided pro-bono legal services, and doctors, veterinarians, and other scientists who have contributed to the campaign have done so without remuneration--individual Davids all, opposing the might of the biotechnology, medical, and pharmaceutical industries.

CRT must now engage in some serious fund raising in anticipation of HHS's refusal to accede to the petition by the deadline of June 10.  It has set a goal of raising $100,000 by that date in order to launch a lawsuit to stop HHS from sanctioning xenotransplants.

Contributions marked "for CRT" can be made out to MRMC and mailed to CRT, PO Box 120227,  Boston MA 02112  (Telephone: 617 524 8450)

CRT has received worldwide support from concerned scientists, individuals and organizations representing over 2 million people.

Dr Emanuel Goldman, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the New Jersey Medical School described xenotransplants as "a seductive but inherently dangerous idea...The entire human population on this planet is put at risk by this type of procedure...Viruses that inhabit animals will gain entry into the human population which is not ordinarily available to them."

French virologist Claude Chastel has warned that xenotransplantation could result in "a new infectious Chernobyl".

Dr Roy Selby, Texas physician and heart transplant recipient, asked, "How dare they come up with the idea of using baboons or pigs when we're not even tapping into the source of available human organs."

Dr Mae-Wan Ho has charged from Britain that "xenotransplantation was inspired by commercial and not humanitarian motives."

Meanwhile, the purveyors to sick people of this false hope and dangerous procedure ponder over whether 'tis better to manipulate  genes to make  pigs more like people or to make people more like pigs.


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