In February 2015, Sergio Canavero appeared in this very publication claiming a live human head will be successfully transplanted onto a donor human body within two years. He’s popped up in the media a lot since then, but two years and nine months later, how are things looking?
Well, he’s only gone and done it! As we can see in this Telegraph story … the world’s first human head transplant has been successfully carried out…
Well, not quite. Because if you look past the triumphant and shocking headlines, the truth of the matter becomes very clear, very quickly…
Many of Canavero’s previous appearances in the media have been accompanied by claims of successful head transplant procedures. But, how are we defining “successful” here? Canavero’s definition seems to be extremely “generous” at best.
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Related on the SLP
And this recent successful human head transplant? It was on corpses! Call me a perfectionist if you must, but I genuinely think that any surgical procedure where the patients or subjects die before it even starts is really stretching the definition of “success” to breaking point.
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You can weld two halves of different cars together and call it a success if you like, but if the moment you turn the key in the ignition the whole thing explodes, most would be hard pressed to back you up on your brilliance.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: No, there hasn’t been a human ‘head transplant’, and there may never be
