One Man Is Getting An Unusual Surgery: A Head Transplant

Surgeon Sergio Canavero has vowed to go to China since he is banned from doing a head transplant  everywhere else. Here is the video explaining the story:

The Italian doctor who has claimed that he could transplant a man’s head onto a donor’s body has said that he could do much of the procedure in less than an hour.

The procedure — which Canavero has admitted is just a first step towards his ultimate aim of creating immortality — will see a man’s head removed and placed on a donor’s body.

That will see the man’s head get cooled down — as it is when doctors operate on some parts of the brain — and switched onto the different body. Doctors will then have a few minutes to attach the blood vessels and the whole thing will take less then an hour, Canavero said.

After that, the full joining process could take up to 24 hours. Canavero said that it would be carried out by a team of doctors to ensure that none of them got tired, and that doctors and surgeons from around the world had enquired about joining that team.

Canavero said that he will explain the procedure in depth at a neurosurgeons’ conference on June 12. “I’ll prove it is totally possible to all the sceptics there,” he told Mail Online.

A drawing depicting the first total cephalosomatic exchange in a monkey (from White et al. 1971)

A drawing depicting the first total cephalosomatic exchange in a monkey (from White et al. 1971)

The patient for Canavero’s first attempt at the head transplant has already been chosen, and identified as Valeri Spidonov. He is a 30-year-old Russian man who has Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, which wastes away his muscles and means that his health is rapidly declining.

As well as casting doubt on the scientific likelihood of the procedure, doctors have said that if successful it could cause huge problems for Canavero. One expert warned that Spidonov could suffer something “a lot worse than death”.

The doubt of those in Europe and Russia mean that Canavero could head to China to carry out the procedure, he said. Canavero also admits that it’s possible he could be jailed for carrying out the procedure in an unfriendly country.

“I’m ready for that. I’ve been studying Chinese for a few years.

“You should understand that it’s not simply a medical procedure. This surgery has a political meaning.”

He likened the procedure to Russia and America’s battle to be the first into space and to the moon, saying that the first company to host such a surgery will become a “leader”.

SOURCES
Independent UK

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