A man with end-stage renal disease who earlier this year became the first human to receive a new kidney from a genetically modified pig has died, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston said.
"The Mass General transplant team is deeply saddened at the sudden passing of Mr. Rick Slayman," the hospital said in a statement on Saturday. "We have no indication that it was the result of his recent transplant."[emphasis added]
Likely no. The patient had several other severe health issues, any one of which (or, more likely, a combination of which) caused his death. His new mutant kidney was probably the healthiest thing inside him.
That's the problem with using experimental procedures on terminally ill patients. The data is crap because you sont know if the procedure killed them or if they just were never gonna make it. .
True, but there's not many healthy people lining up to get pig organs implanted so this is realistically the best human data we can get until it's proven to work.