This week, 30-year-old Russian man, Valery
Spiridonov, announced that he will become
the subject of the first human head
transplant ever performed, saying he
volunteers to have his head removed and
installed on another person’s body.
If this sounds like some kind of sick joke,
we’re right there with you, but
unfortunately, this is all too real. Earlier this
year , Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero
outlined the transplant technique he intends
to follow in the journal Surgical Neurology
International , and said he planned to launch
the project at the annual conference of the
American Academy of Neurological and
Orthopaedic Surgeons (AANOS) in the US in
June, where he will invite other researchers
to join him in his head transplant dream.
At the time, it sounded completely
outlandish - and it still is - but the
difference now is that Canavero actually
has a living, breathing volunteer willing to
be the guinea pig for what Christopher
Hootan at The Independent says is
predicted to be a 36-hour operation
requiring the assistance of 150 doctors and
nurses. You can read about the procedure
here.
Hootan brings home what’s really at stake
for Spiridonov - it’s not just death he has to
worry about:
"A Werdnig-Hoffman disease sufferer with
rapidly declining health, Spiridonov is willing
to take a punt on this very experimental
surgery and you can't really blame him, but
while he is prepared for the possibility that
the body will reject his head and he will die,
his fate could be considerably worse than
death,” says Hootan.
"I would not wish this on anyone," said Dr
Hunt Batjer, president elect of the American
Association for Neurological Surgeons. "I
would not allow anyone to do it to me as
there are a lot of things worse than death."
From speaking to several medical experts,
Hootan has pin-pointed a problem that even
the most perfectly performed head
transplant procedure cannot mitigate - we
have literally no idea what this will do to
Spiridonov’s mind. There’s no telling what
the transplant - and all the new
connections and foreign chemicals that his
head and brain will have to suddenly deal
with - will do to Spiridonov’s psyche, but as
Hootan puts it rather chillingly , it "could
result in a hitherto never experienced level
and quality of insanity".
This is actually happening, and we're
terrified. Also, I’ve suddenly got a great
idea for a movie, and judging from the
creepy performance below, Canavero could
pretty much be cast as himself:
Source: The Independent

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