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David M. Warshauer, MD
Yale University New Haven, Conn

JAMA. 1985;254(3):356.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Recent work with baboon-to-human heart transplants and impending work with chimpanzee-to-human liver transplants raise serious ethical questions. Certainly, animal products such as insulin, heart valves, and growth hormone, have produced great good for human beings. However, there are essential differences between these products derived from lower domesticated animals and products that will derive from the new and proposed work with the higher primates.

First is the philosophical question of consciousness and its implications. There can be little doubt that chimpanzee society rivals our own in awareness, organization, and emotional content.¹ Whether this fact should confer some protection on chimpanzees from being viewed only as reservoirs for spare parts can be debated, although it seems reasonable that it should.

The second difference is less debatable. Chimpanzees are an endangered species. Estimated world populations are in the 50,000 range as compared with 4.5 billion humans. Capture techniques to . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Drummond Rennie, MD, Senior Contributing Editor.

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