In the first, Dr Jack Kevorkian, the well-known euthanasia practitioner from Detroit, plans to offer organs from his suicide patients. In the second, calls have been made to kill certain PVS patients by lethal injection in order to harvest their organs. The International Forum for Transplant Ethics sees no moral distinction between allowing someone to die by starvation and actively ending life. The parents of Tony Bland, the PVS victim of the Hillsborough Disaster in 1989, have supported the call, saying that they would have preferred this option for their son even though it was not available at the time. A spokeswoman for the BMA, however, has said that, 'PVS patients are not suitable donors.
Thousands die each year waiting for allotransplants and waiting lists keep on growing.
Recent estimates state that it would take just 100 breeding sows to negate the entire UK kidney shortfall. Recent advances have made xenotransplantation look far more likely. For instance, genetic engineering has virtually abolished the problems of hyperacute rejection when transplanting animal organs into humans. However, many hurdles still stand. The effect on humans is not yet known but similar viruses from mice have caused thymic leukaemia in macaque monkeys.