(Stillness in the Storm Editor) The following article briefly details the findings of a scientist who researched head transplantation in the late 1990s. The justification is that for those with incurable diseases it may provide a new lease on life, but at what cost?
In my research, the vast, vast majority of diseases—including so-called incurable ones—can be addressed using holistic means, especially when consciousness is taken into consideration. But in our world of pandemic unconsciousness and self-destructive socially acceptable habits and behaviors, this seems insane. Of course, most of the world still thinks cures for cancer don’t exist, and we’ve been trained via propaganda to think what we do with our bodies has no bearing on their health. But to those who have taken time to dispel these illusions, incredible restoration of one’s health can be effected using natural means.
But for those still buying into the status quo of the medical and health industry, replacing a sick body with a new one seems like a reasonable idea—not unlike replacing a car or a cell phone. And I would argue it’s one step away from a transhumanist philosophy.
The powers that be want humanity to believe our biology is inadequate and fundamentally flawed, this way the transhumanist agenda can take root in the minds of the unaware. And it seems we are moving toward that goal every day. But at the same time, a growing flock of awake and aware people are stepping into an organic way of life, one that is in balance and harmony with nature.
Even though this research into head transplantation occurred almost 20 years ago, a Russian man volunteered to be one of the first to try it, as reported by CBS news (see second article). The media presented the story stating that it wouldn’t be allowed in the West, but it’s raising the issue again in a way that prepares the way for approval at some point in the future—a kind of shock-test for the masses to see if they will accept the idea.
by David Gutierrez, September 30th 2016
An Italian doctor claims that he can transfer human consciousness to a new body by transplanting a head onto a new body. This could hypothetically prolong the lives of people whose bodies are ravaged by diseases that cannot be cured.
The desire to achieve immortality with medicine stretches back centuries, and the idea of a whole-body transplant in particular has been raised as a serious suggestion as far back as the 1960s. But many very real scientific and medical hurdles remain to be addressed before heads are likely to become just another organ to be transplanted.
‘Barbaric’ experiments
Interest in disconnecting the brain from the body stems back at least to the French Revolution, when observers noticed signs of consciousness in heads that had been severed by guillotine. Speculation that the brain might continue to function after being separated from the body has been fueled by research into out-of-body experiences and similar phenomena.
But the scientist who probably did the most to promote the idea of prolonging life through head transplants was Dr. Robert White, who died in 2010. White’s most (in)famous experiment consisted of transplanting the head from one monkey onto the body of another. Because the transplant left the cranial nerves untouched and reconnected the old head to the new circulatory system, the monkey’s head was still able to perceive its surroundings, eat, follow objects with its eyes, and bite the hands of the scientists that had tortured it. But because the spinal nerves in the body had been severed, the new body was paralyzed.
Immune rejection caused the monkey to die within nine days. Critics condemned the experiments as “barbaric.”
But White remained convinced that his monkey experiments were the first step in performing similar transplants on human beings. He argued that for a quadriplegic with a terminal disease, such a transplant would provide only benefits.
“I have no doubt this treatment will be available in the public arena within the next 25 to 30 years,” he said in a 1998 interview. “There will be a lot of ethical and moral arguments, but I think they are inappropriate.
“What we are trying to do here is to prolong life. The human spirit or soul is within the physical structure of the brain. I don’t think it’s in your left arm or anywhere else.”
White was convinced of this latter point, despite a lack of scientific evidence for such a bold assertion. As early as 1974, he wrote, “Science has reached the threshold where human consciousness can be transferred provided the organ which supervenes this characteristic is maintained.”
Science or fiction?
Since White’s death, his ideas have been championed primarily by an Italian neurosurgeon named Sergio Canavero, who made headlines last year when he announced his intention to perform a human head transplant by the end of 2017. He laid out a detailed proposal for a 36-hour surgery to fuse the head of a person with a debilitating disease to the body of a brain-dead donor. The head and spinal cord would be lowered to below 20°C, allowing just one hour for surgeons to remove both the old heads and reconnect the living head to the new spinal cord and blood vessels.
Yet there is no evidence that a head could survive even for an hour disconnected from its body, even at such low temperatures. In fact, in animal studies two separate spines severed at the neck have never been successfully fused in such a way as to allow muscle control.
The problems of immune rejection (which is common even with hand transplants) and immune-system-produced scarring of nerve tissue (glial scars) are not addressed in Canavero’s proposal. It is also unclear whether it is even possible for a brain to rewire to control an entirely new body.
Related Transhumanism vs. Ascension | The Skingularity is Near – Free eBook by William Henry
Russian man volunteers for first human head transplant
by Ashley Welch, August 29th 2016
While severing someone’s head and attaching it to another person’s body sounds like something straight out of a science fiction or horror movie, some real-life scientists say they are planning to do just that – as early as next year.
Italian neuroscientist Dr. Sergio Canavero made headlines last year when he announced his plans to perform the first human head transplant in 2017. Since then, he’s recruited Chinese surgeon Dr. Xiaoping Ren to work with him, and now has found a volunteer patient for the procedure: a Russian man named Valery Spiridonov.
Spiridonov suffers from Werdnig-Hoffmann Disease, a rare and often fatal genetic disorder that breaks down muscles and kills nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that help the body move. Spiridonov is confined to a wheelchair; his limbs are shriveled and his movements essentially limited to feeding himself, typing, and controlling his wheelchair with a joystick.
In its September issue, The Atlantic profiles Spiridonov and the two scientists who hope to perform the experimental – and highly controversial – procedure.
“Removing all the sick parts but the head would do a great job in my case,” Spiridonov told the magazine. “I couldn’t see any other way to treat myself.”
Many scientists have spoken out against Canavero and Ren’s plans, accusing them of promoting junk science and creating false hopes. One critic went so far as to say the scientists should be charged with murder if the patient dies, a very likely outcome.
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| Valery Spiridonov, a man who has volunteered to be the first person to undergo a head transplant, attends a news conference in Vladimir, Russia, June 25, 2015. The 30-year-old Russian has a degenerative muscle condition known as Werdnig-Hoffman. Italian neurosurgeon Dr. Sergio Canavero believes he could perform a head transplant with a 90 percent chance of success, but many experts are doubtful. REUTERS/MAXIM ZMEYEV |
Canavero has published detailed plans for the procedure, which has been successfully tested in mice, in several papers published in the journal Surgical Neurology International.
First, like with other organ transplants, he and his team would need a suitable donor. This procedure would require a body from a young brain-dead male patient.
Once permission from the family is granted, the surgeons would set the body up for surgical decapitation.
At the same time, Spiridonov would be brought in and another surgical team would cool his body to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. This would delay tissue death in the brain for about an hour, meaning the surgeons would need to work quickly.
Using a transparent diamond blade, they would then remove both patients’ heads from their bodies, ultimately severing their spinal cords at the same time.
A custom-made crane would be used to shift Spiridonov’s head – hanging by Velcro straps – onto the donor body’s neck. The two ends of the spinal cord would then be fused together with a chemical called polyethylene glycol, or PEG, which has been shown to promote regrowth of cells that make up the spinal cord.
The muscles and blood supply from the donor body would then be joined with Spiridonov’s head, and he would be kept in a coma for three to four weeks to prevent movement as he healed. Implanted electrodes would be used to stimulate the spinal cord to strengthen new nerve connections.
Canavero has said the transplant – which would require 80 surgeons and cost tens of millions of dollars if approved – would have a “90 percent plus” chance of success.
Yet many in the scientific community strongly disagree.
“It is both rotten scientifically and lousy ethically,” Arthur Caplan, the head of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center, wrote in an article for Forbes last year.
Dr. Jerry Silver, a neuroscientist at Case Western Reserve whose work on repairing spinal cord injuries was cited by Canavero, told CBS News in 2013 that the proposed transplant is “bad science. This should never happen.”
“Just to do the experiments is unethical,” he added.
Even in the unlikely event that the surgery worked, it raises further, uncharted ethical concerns.
For example, Canavero is presuming that transplanting Spiridonov’s head and brain onto another body would automatically transplant his whole self with his mind, personality, and consciousness. But it’s not that simple, as Anto Cartolovni and Antonio Spagnolo, two Italian bioethicists, pointed out in a letter to Surgical Neurology International after Canavero’s paper was published last year.
“Despite his [Canavero’s] vision, modern cognitive science shows that our cognition is an embodied cognition, in which the body is a real part in the formation of human self,” they write. “Therefore, the person will encounter huge difficulties to incorporate the new body in its already existing body schema and body image that would have strong implications on human identity.”
Furthermore, if Spiridonov were to reproduce with his new body, his children would not have his genetic makeup but that of the donor’s. What kind of rights, then, might the donor’s family have to the offspring?
Finally, Cartolovni and Spagnolo argue that because of the uncertainty of the operation, such a procedure would take away vital donor organs that could have been used for someone else who needed a heart or a liver transplant to save their lives.
If approved, the procedure would likely take place in China or another country outside of Europe or the United States, The Atlantic reports, as it would not be approved in the Western world.
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Stillness in the Storm Editor’s note: Did you find a spelling error or grammar mistake? Do you think this article needs a correction or update? Or do you just have some feedback? Send us an email at [email protected]. Thank you for reading.
Sources:
http://www.naturalnews.com/055478_consciousness_head_transplant_mad_science.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-man-volunteers-for-first-human-head-transplant/
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