Baby fae

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Stephanie Fae Beauclair , known under the name Baby Fae (born October 14, 1984 , † November 15, 1984 ), was a prominent recipient of a xenotransplantation . Her case sparked a broad debate about medical ethics, some of which has continued to this day .

Case history

Baby Fae was born with a serious heart defect ( hypoplastic left heart syndrome ) and, according to the state of the art of medicine at the time, had no chance of survival. The surgeon Leonard Bailey (1942-2019) of Loma Linda University in Loma Linda near Los Angeles , who was doing research in the field of xenotransplantation, suggested that the girl be transplanted with a baboon heart . He speculated u. a. on the fact that the intrauterine immune tolerance could be sufficiently strong so shortly after birth to prevent a rejection reaction.

Technically, the operation was a success. Bailey, who had many years of experience in the field of transplant medicine, successfully transplanted the heart on October 26, 1984, and his performance was sufficient to maintain blood circulation. The rejection reaction was stronger than Bailey expected, and Baby Fae died twenty days after the operation from immune-induced destruction of the transplanted heart.

The case in the medical-ethical context

Baby Fae was neither the first nor the last case of baboon-human xenograft. The case owes its ethical significance on the one hand to the general ethical problems of xenotransplantation, but also to the state of research on the acquisition of immune competence, which made fatal rejection appear extremely likely and was simply ignored by Bailey. When asked later why he chose a primate (as opposed to a chimpanzee, for example ) as a donor , which was evolutionarily relatively distant from humans , Bailey also replied that he did not believe in the theory of evolution.

The case is now generally cited as an example of an inadequate ethical review by which an ambitious surgeon could carry out an in principle superfluous human experiment that prolonged the patient's suffering by a few days without averting certain death.

credentials

  • Bailey L. et al. (1985): Baboon-to-human cardiac xenotransplantation in a neonate. In: JAMA 254 ( 23 ): 3321-9. PMID 2933538 .
  • Bailey L. et al. (1986): Method of heart transplantation for treatment of hypoplastic left heart syndrome. In: J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 92 ( 1 ): 1-5. PMID 3523049 .
  • Hubbard LL. (1987): The Baby Fae Case. In: Med Law 6 ( 5 ): 385-96 PMID 3309521 .
  • McCormick RA (1985): Was there any real hope for Baby Fae? In: The Hastings Center Report 15 ( 1 ): 12-13 doi : 10.2307 / 3561909 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Legacy of Baby Fae ( Memento dated May 4, 2012 on WebCite ) on the Loma Linda University website
personal data
SURNAME Baby fae
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stephanie Fae Beauclair
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American girl who had an animal heart transplant
DATE OF BIRTH October 14, 1984
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1984
Place of death Loma Linda University, Los Angeles