FDA Devising Clinical Trials for Pig-to-Human Transplants: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
July 1, 2022

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Washington, D.C. –

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) reported plans for animal-to-human clinical trials:

FDA officials have lost their minds. Allowing clinical trials of xenotransplants to go forward after a man who received a pig’s heart lived just 45 days and contracted a virus known to affect pigs is inviting disaster. Contrary to the pig-abusing profiteers’ claims, there is no way to ensure that pigs are virus-free. Every animal-to-human transplant represents hundreds of pigs’ lives and the risk of a new pandemic. Cleaning up the organ procurement business, which wastes as many as 28,000 organs annually, and enacting presumed consent laws would save human lives, spare animals, and protect us from dangerous pathogens that can easily jump from one species to another.

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