The alleged chronic shortage of human organs has led some researchers and federal health officials in the US and elsewhere to consider using organs from animals such as pigs and nonhuman primates. Xenotransplantation, attempted since 1905, is marred by a history of failures and intense human and animal suffering. But the prospect of commercializing the technology has created huge financial incentives for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in xenotransplantation. The desire to gain a return on such large investments has led many companies to make exaggerated claims about the alleged merits of the technology. CRT believes that these claims are baseless and that, in fact, the technology is dangerous, expensive, inhumane, and unnecessary, and should therefore be banned.
Many animal viruses have the ability to jump species barriers and kill humans.
Viruses that are harmless to their animal hosts, can be deadly when transmitted to humans. For example, Macaque herpes is harmless to Macaque monkeys, but lethal to humans. Many viruses, as innocuous as the common cold or as lethal as Ebola, can be transmitted via a mere cough or sneeze. An animal virus residing in a xenograft recipient could become airborne, infecting scores of people, and causing a potentially deadly viral epidemic of global proportions akin to HIV or worse. Pigs, genetically altered to carry human genes, are being considered as the source animals of choice for xenotransplants, despite the existence of over 25 diseases in pigs that can infect humans.