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GLASGOW, Scotland, July 27 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The head of the Scottish firm which cloned Dolly the sheep has called for genetic experiments on brain-dead human patients. Scotland’s Daily Record reported yesterday that Dr. Ron James would like to see genetically modified pig organs transplanted into the patients to see if they are safe. His firm, PPL Therapeutics, has already cloned piglets and believes that organs from pigs could be transplanted into humans within four years. Dr. James acknowledged that there would be opposition from the general public to such an idea, a “yuck factor” as he called it.

The suggestion is sure to heighten the controversy around brain death. As the Canadian Parliament sought to find ways to increase organ donation in Canada, a parliamentary committee was informed that heart transplant “donors” must be alive. Ruth Oliver, a Vancouver psychiatrist who was declared clinically dead in 1977 at the Kingston General Hospital after suffering internal bleeding of the brain, told the committee she is “living testimony that people survive.” Dr. John Yun, a Richmond, B.C. oncologist, testified to the committee that organ harvesting was the impetus behind the brain death theory that has been accepted by the medical profession since 1968. Ten years ago Yun worked in an ICU unit keeping brain dead patients on life support for organ transplants. Yun now believes this activity was wrong. “We must not jump to the conclusion that a dubious definition of death—the medical hypothesis of brain death—is in fact death,” he said.

(with files from the Society of Unborn Children; SPUC)