In an EPR procedure, surgeons pump ice-cold saline into the aorta the main artery exiting the heart at a rate of at least a gallon per minute. Once the body temperature has lowered to 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, blood circulation and brain activity slows dramatically, giving the surgical team extra time to operate. After the wounds are stitched, surgeons pump blood back into the patient using a heart-lung bypass machine, increasing the temperature incrementally until their body is warm enough to circulate blood independently.
Pigs were successfully cooled, operated on and resuscitated—and sustained brain function afterward. But taking a carefully planned lab experiment to a trauma care unit presents serious ethical considerations.
The trial is set to include ten patients who will undergo EPR and ten who receive standard care. Eligibility requirements limit who can be a trial participant. Conceivably, special high-tech facilities with robots and artificial intelligence watching over the hibernators might solve the resource issue, but even then, Winters notes that long-term hibernation would entail major disparities between the wealthy and poor. Will her younger sister adopt her? What would that be like?
Outside of medicine, one application of human hibernation that has intrigued generations of science fiction writers is in long-duration space travel. During a voyage lasting years or decades, space explorers or colonists not only could avoid long periods of potential boredom, but also the aging process.
Considering that the alternative to "sleeper ships" would be multi-generation starships so large that they'd be like small worlds, human hibernation in spaceflight could become an enabling technology for interstellar flight.
Back on Earth, the daunting policy questions may take many years to resolve. Society ought to be aware of them now, before human hibernation technology outpaces its dramatic implications.
Short-term cryopreservation is currently part of the continuum of care," notes David N. Hoffman, a clinical ethicist and health care attorney who teaches at Columbia University, and at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. There's also a legal-ethical issue involving the parties that decide to put the person into hibernation versus the patient wishes in terms of what risk benefit ratio they would accept, and who is responsible for the expense and burdens associated with cases that don't turn out just right?
To begin thinking about practical solutions, Hoffman characterizes long-term human hibernation as an extension of the ethics of cyro-preserved embryos that are held for potential parents, often for long periods of time.
But the human hibernation issue is much more complex. Such multigenerational considerations might become more manageable, of course, in an era when gene therapy, bionic parts, and genetically engineered replacement organs enable dramatic life extension. But if people will be living for centuries regardless of whether or not they hibernate, then developing the medical technology may be the least of the challenges.
Emily Oster, Brown economist and bestselling author, stops by the podcast for a robust discussion on the kids' Covid vaccine as well as her expectations for school vaccine and mask policies in The "Making Sense of Science" podcast features interviews with leading medical and scientific experts about the latest developments and the big ethical and societal questions they raise.
This monthly podcast is hosted by journalist Kira Peikoff, founding editor of the award-winning science outlet Leaps. This month, Brown economist and bestselling author Dr. Emily Oster breaks down her decision-making process about why she vaccinated her kids against Covid, and the helpful frameworks other parents can use to think through the decision for their own kids.
She also discusses her expectations for school policies regarding vaccines and masks in Listen on Apple. Listen on Spotify. Listen on Stitcher.
Listen on Amazon. Listen on Google. Kira Peikoff is the editor-in-chief of Leaps. Peikoff holds a B. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young sons. Follow her on Twitter KiraPeikoff. The author, an infectious disease physician, pictured with his two daughters who are getting vaccinated against COVID As an infectious disease doctor who took care of hundreds of COVID patients over the past 20 months, I have seen the immediate and long-term consequences of COVID on patients — and on their families.
As a father of two daughters, I have lived through the fear and anxiety of protecting my kids at all cost from the scourges of the pandemic and worried constantly about bringing the virus home from work.
It is imperative that we vaccinate as many children in the community as possible. There are several reasons why.
Over the course of the pandemic in the U. S, more than 2 million children aged have become infected, more than have been hospitalized, and more than have died, making COVID one of the top 10 causes of pediatric deaths in this age group over the past year. These include complaints of brain fog, fatigue, trouble breathing, fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, abdominal pain, mood swings and even psychiatric disorders.
Symptoms typically last from weeks in children, with some reporting symptoms that persist for many months. This led him to start investigating ways in which cooling might allow surgeons more time to do their job. Animal studies showed that pigs with acute trauma could be cooled for 3 hours, stitched up and resuscitated.
Once we can prove it works here, we can expand the utility of this technique to help patients survive that otherwise would not. Ariane Lewis, director of the division of neuro-critical care at NYU Langone Health, said she thought it was important work, but that it was just first steps.
Read more: Why the line between life and death is now more blurred than ever. Doctors have put humans into a state of suspended animation for the first time in a groundbreaking trial that aims to buy more time for surgeons to save seriously injured patients.
Typically the solution is pumped directly into the aorta, the main artery that carries blood away from the heart to the rest of the body. Known formally as emergency preservation and resuscitation, or EPR, the procedure is being trialled on people who sustain such catastrophic injuries that they are in danger of bleeding to death and who suffer a heart attack shortly before they can be treated.
He said at least one patient had had the procedure but did not elaborate on whether that patient or any others had survived.
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