4B Weekend Edition-March 22-23, 2024
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia I gainesvilletimes.com
HEALTH & SCIENCE
Surgeons use gene-edited pig kidney for transplant
Massachusetts General Hospital via AP
Melissa Mattola-Kiatos,, RN, Nursing Practice Specialist, removes the pig kidney
from its box to prepare for transplantation at Massachusetts General Hospital,
Saturday, March 16, in Boston, Mass.
BYMIKESTOBBE
AP Medical Writer
NEW YORK — Doctors in Boston have
transplanted a pig kidney into a 62-year-old
patient, the latest experiment in the quest to
use animal organs in humans.
Massachusetts General Hospital said
Thursday that it's the first time a genetically
modified pig kidney has been transplanted
into a living person. Previously, pig kidneys
have been temporarily transplanted into
brain-dead donors. Also, two men received
heart transplants from pigs, although both
died within months.
The patient, Richard “Rick” Slayman of
Weymouth, Massachusetts, is recovering
well from the surgery last Saturday and is
expected to be discharged soon, doctors said
Thursday.
Dr. Tatsuo Kawai, the transplant surgeon,
said the team believes the pig kidney will
work for at least two years. If it fails, Slay-
man could go back on dialysis, said kidney
specialist Dr. Winfred Williams. He noted
that unlike the pig heart recipients who were
very sick, Slayman is “actually quite robust,”
Slayman had a kidney transplant at the
hospital in 2018, but had to go back on dialy
sis last year when it showed signs of failure.
When dialysis complications arose requiring
frequent procedures, his doctors suggested a
pig kidney transplant, he said in a statement
released by the hospital.
“I saw it not only as a way to help me, but
a way to provide hope for the thousands of
people who need a transplant to survive,” said
Slayman, a systems manager for the Massa
chusetts Department of Transportation.
The transplant surgery took four hours,
with 15 people in the operating room who
cheered when the kidney started making
urine, doctors said at a news conference.
Dr. Parsia Vagefi, chief of surgical trans
plantation at UT Southwestern Medical
Center, called the announcement “a big step
forward.” But echoing the Boston doctors, he
said studies involving more patients at differ
ent medical centers would be needed for it to
become more commonly available.
The experiment marks the latest devel
opment in xenotransplantation, the term
for efforts to try to heal human patients
with cells, tissues, or organs from animals.
For decades, it didn't work — the human
immune system immediately destroyed
foreign animal tissue. More recent attempts
have involved pigs that have been modi
fied so their organs are more humanlike —
increasing hope that they might one day help
fill a shortage of donated organs.
More than 100,000 people are on the
national waiting list for a transplant, most
of them kidney patients, and thousands die
every year before their turn comes.
Pigs have long been used in human medi
cine, including pig skin grafts and implan
tation of pig heart valves. But transplanting
entire organs is much more complex than
using highly processed tissue. The kidney
implanted in Slayman was provided by
eGenesis of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The
pig was genetically edited to remove harm
ful pig genes and add certain human genes to
improve its compatibility with humans.
Slayman's case was challenging, doctors
said. Even before his first transplant, he had
trouble being on dialysis and needed doz
ens of procedures to try to remove clots and
restore blood flow. He became “increasingly
despondent and depressed over his dialysis
situation. At one point... he literally said ‘I
just can't go on like this,'” said his kidney
doctor, Williams.
The Food and Drug Administration gave
special permission for Slayman's transplant
under “compassionate use” rules.
Nathan Howard Associated Press
Protesters dressed as Abraham Lincoln chant during a Planned Parenthood rally in support of abortion
access outside the U.S. Supreme Court, April 15, 2023, in Washington.
AP-NORC: Nearly 8 in 10 AAPI adults
in the US think abortion should be legal
BY GRAHAM LEE BREWER
AND AMELIA TH0MS0N-DEVEAUX
Associated Press
WASHINGTON—With abortion
rights poised to be one of the major
issues in the 2024 election, a new
poll shows that Asian Americans,
Native Hawaiians and Pacific
Islanders in the United States are
highly supportive of legal abortion,
even in situations where the pregnant
person wants an abortion for any
reason.
The poll from AAPI Data and
The Associated Press-NORC
Center for Public Affairs Research
finds that nearly 8 in 10 Asian
Americans, Native Hawaiians and
Pacific Islanders think abortion
should be legal in all or most cases.
They're also supportive of federal
government action to preserve
abortion rights: Three-quarters of
AAPI adults say Congress should
pass a law guaranteeing access to
legal abortions nationwide.
By comparison, an AP-NORC poll
conducted last June found that 64%
of U.S. adults think abortion should
be legal in all or most cases, and 6 in
10 U.S. adults overall say Congress
should pass a law guaranteeing
access.
AAPI adults are more likely than
Americans overall to identify as
Democrats, which may partially
explain why their levels of support
for legal abortion are higher than
among the general population. But
even among Democrats, AAPI adults
are more supportive of legal abortion
later in pregnancy. AAPI Democrats
are especially likely to support legal
abortion without any limits — more
than half of this group say abortion
should be legal in all cases, compared
to 40% of Democrats overall.
AAPI Republicans are also more
likely than Republicans overall to
support a law guaranteeing access to
legal abortion nationwide. More than
half (57%) of AAPI Republicans
think abortion should be legal in at
least some cases, compared to 38%
of Republicans in general. About
half (51%) of AAPI Republicans
also think Congress should pass a
law guaranteeing access to legal
abortion nationwide, while only 32%
of Republicans overall want this to
happen.
Although AAPI voters are a
fast-growing demographic with a
particularly large presence in states
like California, Texas and New
York, their attitudes can often not be
analyzed in other surveys because
of small sample sizes, among other
issues. This survey is part of an
ongoing project focusing on AAPI
Americans' views.
High turnout in areas with large
AAPI communities could help
Democrats in competitive House
districts, and a broader conversation
about whether nonwhite voters
are shifting to the right may lead
to more courting of AAPI voters.
The survey's findings suggest that
abortion could be a strong issue
for Democratic candidates who are
looking to reach AAPI communities,
and a challenge for Republicans.
“It saddens me how politics got
involved in this, and they really
shouldn't have,” said Debra Nanez, a
72-year-old retired nurse in Tucson,
Arizona, and an Independent voter.
Nanez identifies as Asian, Native
American and Hispanic. “It's a
woman's body. How can you tell
us what we can do with our bodies,
what we can keep and what we
cannot keep? It’s ridiculous.”
While an AP-NORC poll
conducted in October 2022 found
that more than 4 in 10 Americans
overall trust Democrats to do a
better job of handling the issue of
abortion, while only 2 in 10 have
more trust in Republicans, the poll
released Thursday shows that the
trust gap between the parties is wider
for AAPI adults. Fifty-five percent
of AAPI adults trust Democrats on
abortion policy, while only 12% trust
Republicans.
More than half of AAPI adults
were born outside the U.S., according
to the survey. For many of those
immigrants and their first-generation
American children, abortion isn’t
just viewed as health care — it can
also be seen as a right that was not
afforded to them in their countries of
origin, said Varan Nikore, executive
director of AAPI Victory Alliance,
a progressive political advocacy
organization.
“I think it has to do with some sort
of home country attitudes that are
sort of pervasive, but also the strong
feeling we’ve had rights and we’ve
had access to health care, and now
we don’t want to lose something that
we had. And it could be that we also
came to this country to have better
access to health care than we did
before,” Nikore said.
Nearly 6 in 10 AAPI adults
don’t want Congress to pass a law
preserving states' ability to set their
own laws allowing or restricting
abortion, and only 14% support the
passage of a law banning access to
abortions nationwide.
Joie Meyer, 24, is a health
care consultant in Florida, where
abortions are prohibited after 15
weeks of pregnancy. She said that
given that other nearby states like
Alabama and Georgia have even
more restrictive abortion laws, she
would have to travel far to receive
the procedure.
“I'm 24 and maybe some people
my age are having children, but if
I were to get in that position to be
pregnant, I don't think I would feel
ready,” she said. “So, that would be
something that I would have to think
about.”
Meyer, who was born in China
but has lived in the U.S. since an
infant, has made plans with a friend
in California in case she does need an
abortion. Flying across the country
might be more time-consuming
than driving to the nearest state that
provides abortion, but she said she
wants to know that she'll be with
someone who can take care of her
during the recovery.
“Even if there's a closer state,
would I want to do that alone and
have to really navigate that physical
and emotional pain alone? Not
really,” Meyer said.
The poll of 1,172 U.S. adults
who are Asian American, Native
Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders was
conducted from Feb. 5-14, 2024,
using a sample drawn from NORC’s
probability-based Amplify AAPI
Panel, designed to be representative
of the Asian American, Native
Hawaiian and Pacific Islander
population. The margin of sampling
error for all respondents is plus or
minus 3.9 percentage points.
Blood tests could
identify people with
AFib at risk of stroke
BY LAURA WILLIAMSON
American Heart Association News
Booking at specific
substances in the blood
of people with atrial
fibrillation, a type of
irregular heartbeat, could
help identify who's at risk
for a stroke despite taking
blood-thinning medication
to prevent one, new research
suggests.
The researchers found
biomarkers in the blood
that reflect heart strain,
inflammation and clotting
raised stroke risk in people
with AFib who are on blood
thinners. The findings
were presented Thursday
at the American Heart
Association's Epidemiology,
Prevention, Fifestyle and
Cardiometabolic Health
conference in Chicago.
AFib is a common type
of arrhythmia in which the
heart's two upper chambers
quiver instead of fully
contracting, interfering with
their ability to pump blood to
the heart's lower chambers.
Blood left behind may pool
and clot, raising the risk for
a stroke. To prevent clots,
people with AFib are often
prescribed blood thinners,
including anticoagulant and
antiplatelet medications.
But the treatment doesn't
always work. Some people
on blood thinners have what
are called breakthrough
strokes, said Dr. Samuel
Short, the study's lead
researcher and an internal
medicine resident at the
University of North Carolina
in Chapel Hill.
“We wanted to find out
if, among people already
taking blood thinners,
blood tests could be used
to predict who might have
a stroke,” Short said. If so,
it could help researchers
pinpoint which people with
AFib might benefit from
additional treatment.
Short and his team used
blood tests to measure
levels of nine biomarkers
previously shown to be
associated with risk of
strokes caused by clots,
known as ischemic strokes.
Among 713 people with
AFib who were taking
blood-thinning medications,
9% (67 people) had their
first ischemic stroke over 12
years of follow-up.
Elevated levels of four
biomarkers involved in
heart strain, inflammation
and blood clotting were
associated with higher
stroke risk.
The findings are
considered preliminary until
full results are published in a
peer-reviewed journal.
Because blood clots
might form more easily in
people with higher levels of
these biomarkers, Short said
that being able to identify
people at highest risk for a
breakthrough stroke “is the
first step in understanding
what else might need to be
done for that patient.”
The next step is to look at
how additional medications
or procedures could help this
group of people, he said.
For some AFib patients
on blood thinners,
breakthrough strokes might
happen because they aren't
taking their medications
as prescribed or the drugs
are ineffective, said Dr.
Uma Srivatsa, director of
arrhythmia services at UC
Davis Health in California.
Higher biomarkers
“would help us to be more
diligent in monitoring these
patients and to identify
alternative treatment
options,” said Srivatsa,
who was not involved in
the new study. “There are a
lot of unknowns out there,
but anything that helps us
identify who is at risk is
useful.”
Kenny Eliason Unsplash
These blood tests are done to measure the levels of
nine biomarkers previously shown to be associated
with risk of strokes caused by clots, known as isch
emic strokes.
