Animal-to-human transplants coming to Australia

I DOUBT very much that these pigs would be treated with good food, excersise, etc.. I DOUBT very much!. I have been and seen the way animals are treated in labs, etc.. and even if they are fed, etc.. they wont be given excersise i doubt. It would cost too much $$ to do all that. They would simply be placed in either lab cages or god forbid, full on caged sites like a sweat shop.. either way,  it is a completely unnatural treatment and lifestyle for this animal.

My grandfather has a heart valve from a pig in his chest. Because of that he gets a few more years out of life. Obviously I'm not happy about the pig having to sacrifice his life, but I am thrilled I get a few more years with my pop.


I guess for me medical treatments like this and the one mentioned in that article are much more difficult for me to see it as either good or bad, like I do with animals slaughtered for human food consumption. Either option is quite upsetting!

For me, I would turn down a transplant. For my family or child (if I had one), I don't know how I would feel. I don't like the fact that I feel like that but I am just being honest.

this is really sad. my cousin has type 1 too and he's only 13 and it's really sad, but he takes insulin and lives a normal life - this whole thing is cruel, greedy and unnecessary. i understand that people are saying how it would be something miraculous for the people with the disease, but i myself have epilepsy and take medication and yes, it's a pain but a complete cure is not worth an innocent life.

I only just saw this (though it was posted *ages* ago).  Firstly - in my lifetime it is likely that there will be a syntehtic alternative produced, so that kind of keeps me going.  But, like many thigns, they're never going to take the trouble to make one if people don't want it.  I write to the company that produces my drug on a yearly basis requesting a synthetic alternative.
I'm now facing a situation in which I may have to take the medication significantly more often (for only a short period of time) and it has started me thinking about it all over again.  I think I am more likely to be firm in trying an alternative, particularly as I now live in a country where there is a wider range of medications avalible, and the cost is not as prohibitive.
It's hard, and I never take offence.  It's easy to say that you would never consider taking a medication that contained animal (by)products, but it's much harder when someone gives you the alternative of possible death.  I watched my grandfather die from the disease that I have and it wasn't a nice, peaceful death - it was horrible and painful.
Anyway - everyone is different, and makes different choices.  This is mine, and I'm the one who has to live with it.