Human head transplants are not allowed in China, warns senior health official
Head of transplant committee attacks procedure as ‘publicity stunt’ and calls for ethics committee to act
The head of China’s transplant committee has attacked research into human head transplants, saying it violated current regulations.
Huang Jiefu, the director of China’s Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee, decried the transplants as a “publicity stunt”.
Huang, a former deputy health minister who has previously condemned the “impossible” ethics of such transplants, was speaking after a Chinese surgeon published the results of an experimental procedure on two corpses last week.
“China absolutely does not allow this type of clinical trial to occur in the country,” he was quoted as saying by Thepaper.cn, adding he hoped the relevant ethics committee would take action. “As a transplant surgeon, I explicitly oppose this type of publicity stunt.”
His strongly worded comments come after Harbin Medical University professor Ren Xiaoping and Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero published the results of a 18-hour procedure that saw them connecting the spinal cord and blood vessels of one head to another deceased body.