VivirLatino

In the kind of gross news for the day, the Belfast Telegraph is reporting that Spanish citizen, Claudia Castillo, has become the first person to get a transplant that was grown specifically for her.

Claudia Castillo, who lives in Barcelona, underwent the operation to replace her windpipe after tuberculosis had left her with a collapsed lung and unable to breathe.

The bioengineered organ was transplanted into her chest last June at the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona.

Four months later she was able to climb two flights of stairs, go dancing and look after her children – activities that had been impossible before the surgery. Ms Castillo has also crossed a second medical frontier by becoming the first person to receive a whole organ transplant without the need for powerful immunosuppressant drugs.

I guess this is a good thing. Well, what the hell am I saying, of *course* it’s a good thing–a young woman has regained something she probably thought she lost forever. That’s always good. But I dunno. I think I’ve read too much sci-fi. I find the idea of growing new limbs and body parts kinda scary at best and terrifying at worst. What nefarious purposes can such a ‘skill’ be put to in the future? Because you know science always starts out with the ‘best of intentions’–and then the atomic bomb is dropped on unsuspecting brown people.

Call me cynical and suspicious, yes. But please, while you do that, explain to me how growing new body parts is not semi-Frankensteinish. And then I’ll try to explain to you how it’s not hypocritical to be against something that I would submit myself to completely and eagerly should the occasion arise that I would need it.