Editing Head transplant (section)

==Ethics and popular opinion==
[[Arthur Caplan]], a [[bioethicist]], has written "Head transplants are fake news. Those who promote such claims and who would subject any human being to unproven cruel surgery merit not headlines but only contempt and condemnation."<ref name=caplan>{{cite news |newspaper=Chicago Trubune |author=Albert Caplan |title=Promise of world's first head transplant is truly fake news |url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-head-transplant-ethics-1215-story.html |date=13 December 2017}}</ref>

Robert J. White became a target for protestors because of his head transplantation experiments. One interrupted a banquet in his honor by offering him a bloody replica of a human head. Others called his house asking for "Dr. Butcher". When White testified in a civil hearing about [[Sam Sheppard]]'s murder case, lawyer Terry Gilbert compared White to [[Dr. Frankenstein]].<ref name="death">[[Grant Segall]], [http://www.cleveland.com/obituaries/index.ssf/2010/09/dr_robert_j_white_was_a_world-.html Dr. Robert J. White, famous neurosurgeron (sic) and ethicist, dies at 84], ''[[The Plain Dealer]]'', (September 16, 2010).</ref> The [[People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals]] described White's experiments as "epitomizing the crude, cruel [[vivisection]] industry".<ref name="nytimes.com">Carla Bennett, [https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/26/opinion/l-cruel-and-unneeded-324295.html Cruel and Unneeded], ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals]], (August 21, 1995).</ref>

In general, the field of transplantation medicine has been met with resistance and alarm from some quarters as advances have been made; [[Joseph Murray]], who performed the first kidney transplant in 1954, was described as doing something [[Appeal to nature|unnatural]] or as playing God. These continued as other organs were transplanted, but perhaps became sharpest as [[hand transplant]]s and [[face transplants]] emerged in 1998 and 2005 respectively, as each of these are visible, personal, and social in ways that internal organs are not.<ref name=Furr2017rev/> The [[medical ethics]] of each of these procedures was extensively discussed and worked out before clinical experimental and regular usage began.<ref name=Furr2017rev/>

With regard to head transplantation, there had been little formal ethical discussion published in the literature and little dialogue among stakeholders {{as of|2017|lc=y}}; the plans of Canavero were well ahead of society's and the medical establishment's readiness or acceptance.<ref name=Furr2017rev/> There was no accepted protocol for conducting the procedure to justify the risk to the people involved, methods of obtaining [[informed consent]] were unclear, especially for the person whose body would be used; issues of desperation render the truly informed consent of a head donor questionable.<ref name=Furr2017rev/> With regard to societal costs, the body of a person willing to be an [[organ donor]] can save the lives of many people, and {{as of|2017|lc=y}}, the supply of tissues and organs from people willing to be organ donors did not meet the medical need of recipients; the notion of an entire donor body going to one other person was difficult to justify at that time.<ref name=Furr2017rev/> Basic legal issues were also unclear {{as of|2017|lc=y}} with regard to whether only one or both of the people involved in a head transplantation would have any legal rights in the post-procedure person.<ref name=Furr2017rev/>

The most appropriate initial form of the procedure was also unclear {{as of|2017|lc=y}}. Because grafting the head onto the spinal cord was not possible at that time, the only feasible procedure would be one where the head was only connected to the blood supply of the donor body, leaving the person completely paralyzed, with the accompanying limited quality of life and high societal cost to maintain.<ref name=Furr2017rev/>

The psychological results of the procedure were unclear as well. While concerns were raised about whether recipients of a face transplant and their social circle would have difficulty adjusting, studies {{as of|2017|lc=y}} had found that disruptions had been minimal. But no transplant had ever been performed where the entire body of an individual is unfamiliar at the conclusion of the procedure, and one of the few documents discussing the ethics in the biomedical literature, a letter to the editor of a journal published in 2015 foresaw a high risk of insanity as a result of the procedure.<ref name=Furr2017rev/><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Cartolovni|first1=Anto|last2=Spagnolo|first2=AntonioG|title=Ethical considerations regarding head transplantation|journal=Surgical Neurology International|date=2015|volume=6|issue=1|pages=103|doi=10.4103/2152-7806.158785|pmid=26110084|pmc=4476134 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Popular opinion about Canavero's plans for head transplantation has been generally negative {{as of|2017|lc=y}}.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530103.700-first-human-head-transplant-could-happen-in-two-years.html?page=2|title=First human head transplant could happen in two years|author=Helen Thomson|work=New Scientist|url-access=registration }}</ref> Many of these criticisms focus on the state of technology and the timeframe in which Canavero says he will be able to successfully conduct the procedure.<ref>{{cite news|last=Fecht|first=Sarah|title=BNo, human head transplants will not be possible by 2017|url=http://www.popsci.com/no-human-head-transplants-will-not-be-possible-2017|access-date=March 6, 2015|newspaper=Popular Science|date=February 27, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://au.news.yahoo.com/technology/a/27031329/man-volunteers-for-world-first-head-transplant-operation/|title=Man volunteers for world first head transplant operation|access-date=April 10, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150410010522/https://au.news.yahoo.com/technology/a/27031329/man-volunteers-for-world-first-head-transplant-operation/|archive-date=April 10, 2015|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}</ref>