Coming from a family of diabetics, I am all for revolutionary treatments and methods to make life easier for my loved ones. However, I can’t bring myself to call Grandma and tell her that injecting pork into her body may help ease her insulin deficiency.
According to Scientific American, the San Diego-based firm MicroIslet Inc. is developing a method of introducing insulin-producing cells from a pig into a diabetic’s abdominal cavity. This allows the body to be less dependent on daily insulin injections, as long as the host’s immune system does not attempt to fight off the new houseguests.
The treatment is only for Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disorder that essentially goes rogue on the rest of the body as it destroys its own insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Without these, a person can no longer break down glucose.
When I read the study, I had to take a moment to really let it sink in. Where was that whole step where we keep this relationship among humans and leave the fun on the farm as Plan B?
For one thing, it is Plan B. Two human pancreases are needed per one diabetic. This two-for-one deal isn’t promising as more than 20-million people suffer from diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association.
In their research, scientists turned to the next best non-human insulin producer, which just so happened to be pigs.
Secondly, people eat bacon, sausage and bologna (yes, bologna is pork) every day. With their population of millions, the pork community can support our bodies with more than just delicious sustenance.
While I’m still trying to get over my aversion to injecting bacon bits from my porcine pals, I also have concerns about just how effective this will be. Lab rats may be cured, but how will humans fare years from now?
MicroIslet Inc. has yet to conduct a trial on humans. The firm admitted that, while it can be a therapeutic solution for diabetics, there’s a chance it won’t replace insulin injections altogether.
An Australian firm claims that its pig islet injection has survived for nine years in a human test subject – evidence that the body won’t reject it. That’s longer than chewing gum stays in the body.
I’m all for finding cures and treatments, but I’m not going to support interspecies transplants unless they are proven to be effective, safe and more importantly, worth it.
In an age of Botox, collagen and removing your own fat just to place it elsewhere, how many foreign objects can our bodies really handle? It’s only a matter of time before we’re either sub-humanoid robots or sub-humanoid animals.
With science running amok, eventually we may be singing, “This little piggy went to market, this little piggy went into my abdominal cavity…”
Kendra Fujino is a senior journalism major and a contributing writer for the Daily Forty-Niner.
